Follow up from bull Canyon

I thought I would try to complete the story of the unhappy campers. Alan Larsen drove up to the place where the "outfit" was stuck a couple of days after I had talked to him. It had been warm for a couple days but not that warm in the canyon. He drove almost to it in two wheel drive. It was stuck in about eight inches of snow. He tried to explain to the misfortunate that one drives in two wheel drive until he gets stuck then goes into four wheel to back out and get out. By the way, the wife had left the vehicle to search for a signal on her phone and spent at least one night lost and alone.
It is scary to know there are people out there with so limited common sense. "They walk among us!"
Thinking about it, I'm sure there are things we have done that we would like to forget.

Sleepless Nights

For the past two days in a row, Jace has begun a troubling pattern that I hope will not continue. He tends to wake up at about 1:00 AM screaming his head off. I have tried letting him scream for up to 20 minutes. It does not die down, he keeps screaming frantically. I'll get him up and either rock him in a rocking chair, or lay down with him on the couch downstairs. He will usually sleep during that time, or get bored and get up to play. During several times in the night, I will attempt to put him into bed. Again, he will start screaming frantically. I leave him for about a half an hour at a time but his screaming does not diminish.

 

We did this just last night from 1 AM to 6 AM. I finally had to go take a shower, so Amber got up and is sitting by his bed right now. We cannot leave his side or else he starts to scream. I don't know what it is. Amber and I are wondering if he is starting to have nightmares, or if he is just really getting afraid of the dark. Either way, we hope we can figure out what is going on. If we keep this up neither one of us will be smiling throughout the day and we may go loony from lack of sleep.

An Amazing Reader

On Monday afternoon, Aliece returned home from school with her homework and her book bag. When Amber looked through her book bag, she didn't find any books from the school. All she found was a note from Aliece's teacher saying, "Aliece has finished all of my hardest books. I have nothing else to send home with her."

 

Aliece has some intense reading skills. She stays up late every night reading books. We have to turn off her light just to get her to finally close her eyes and try to go to sleep. Her reading is very advanced. I am very glad that she has something that she enjoys to do -- and that she does it very well. It is fun to see her relaxing on her bed, on the floor, or on a couch reading a favorite book.

 

Way to go Aliece!

Cookie Gun

Early Saturday morning, I took all the kids that were home (except for Jace who was still sleeping) and we went on our first garage sale hunt of the year. We spent $10 overall throughout the morning. We got lots of good stuff.

 

Aliece is the only child that purchased something that morning. We found a cookie gun that you put dough in and shoot it through different pattern tips to make cookies of different designs and textures. Aliece has always been our little cook in the house, so when she saw this instrument she was hooked.

 

When we got home I mixed her up some cookie dough. Amber and Aliece then spent the next hour creating the cookie creations and baking them for the entire family. We are convinced that Aliece made a great purchase. Her cookie again only cost her two dollars, and I am sure she will get plenty of use with it.

Little Boy Reader

Amber and I took a quick candid shot at Jace on Saturday. Lately, he has become such a little boy. We found him opening up a Legoland pamphlet and spreading it out on the table to read. He sat here for several minutes looking at the different colors and pictures of the Lego creations and of the park itself. He looked so cute just sitting there by himself at the table reading.

Peas are Planted!

Amber and I spent our date night on Friday purchasing items for our garden and yard. On Saturday morning, Amber rallied the troops to come and work in the garden. We had a lot of grass and weeds growing in the garden, so it was the job of the kids and I pull those weeds while Amber shoveled and loosened up the dirt. The kids did a terrific job getting all the weeds out of the garden. When he put five little hands into the garden the work can go quite quickly.

 

As soon as the weeds were pulled, Amber and I mixed in some potting soil and fertilizer. The kids then got together and planted some peas, carrots, and radishes. We got done just in time. As soon as we went into the house the rain started to come down heavy and strong. We were a little late getting the peas planted this year. I hope we still get a decent crop out of them. These are probably the most favorite item in the garden by the entire family.

Watch out Dollar - we have a new Currency!

If you thought the US government could pump out new cash faster than any other organization during this economic crisis, think again. It seems that the Andersen family children have come up with a new currency that multiplies just as fast, or at a greater rate, than the US Federal Reserve.

 

After having given our children several days of money earning opportunities by picking dandelions in our yard, the younger kids have begun to use dandelions as currency. Several times yesterday, when the little girls wanted money to buy candy at Aylee's magic show, or other things, Aliece and Alayna would run outside and bring me a number of dandelion flowers in order to pay for whatever they wanted to buy.

 

I thought it was pretty smart of them to start bartering with dandelions after seeing how they converted over to cash in our home. They were so cute yesterday asking for something and then finding out how much it cost. I would then see them run outside and slam the door. Fairly soon they would come back in with a handful of dandelions to pay for the item rather than going to their bank and retrieving money they have saved.

It's Magic!

Aylee has been wanting to do another magic show for some of our neighbors for some time. She has spent the last few weeks preparing different magic tricks and practicing them so that they become flawless in her hands. She is also spent time training Johnathan to be her magician's assistant.

 

A few days ago, Aylee took fliers over to four different neighbors homes. All of the neighbors that she visited had kids her age and new our kids well. Her flyer advertised 10 magic tricks for one dollar per person. Amber thought that was rather steep and we contemplated talking to Aylee about changing the price. However, we decided that it would be a good lesson for her to learn about price sensitivity and basic economics.

 

I suppose the price elasticity of demand was not as high as Amber and I expected. Aylee had a full house for her magic show. Practically everyone she invited showed up. She did a wonderful job performing her magic tricks. The kids were all riveted to her set. She had built a magician's table and put a small tablecloth over it. That is where she did the majority of her tricks.

 

She did a good job of involving the audience in her tricks. She asked for several different volunteers for a number of her acts. She even let her magician's assistant, Johnathan, perform one of the magic tricks.

 

During the magic show, I saw that she had a bag of candy next to her table. I thought, will that is smart of her, at the end of the show she's going to give everyone a piece of candy. Not this budding capitalist! No sir, at the end of her show, she thanked everyone for coming and said that she had a bag of candy with items that could be purchased for five cents a piece. The kids all jumped up and lined up to purchase several pieces of candy each.

 

After the show was done and everyone had returned home, Aylee went over her earnings and found that she earned nearly 8 dollars in cash.

 

Aylee has always been our little entrepreneur.

Take your Son to Work Day

Friday was the second part of Novell's "take your child to work day" series. Friday was the day for you to take your son to work. They had the same activities prepared that they had for the girls on the prior day. Johnathan and I arrived and had some cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk and talked. We then went and got our picture taken by an airplane that was brought in for these two days.

 

We had a series of mini classes. They started off with a demonstration by a guy from the Clark planetarium in Salt Lake City. We then went to different rooms and learn about different types of careers. Johnathan's favorite class was about aviation. They had a pilot there who talked about a career in the airlines industry. He also spoke of his experience flying throughout his life. Johnathan had several good questions for the man. He was really riveted to that lecture.

 

Another highlight of his day was that he was able to sit in the airplane that was on the lawn at Novell. They let him sit in there and play with the instruments, buttons, and navigation equipment. He loved it.

 

We had a few coupons to A&W restaurant.  So that is where we headed for lunch. We then went back to work for a little while before going home early. I spent the last few hours of work at home instead of the office.

 

I have always been impressed with the way that Novell has handled these annual "take your child to work day" events.

Take your Daughter to Work

Today was Novell's "take your daughter to work day". Novell has always done a good job of providing a great experience for the kids on these days. This was Aliece's first year being able to attend the event. You have to be seven years of or older to attend. She and Aylee went with me to several different mini classes throughout the morning.

 

Novell had also brought in a student airplane from UVU. They let the kids looked around at it and peer inside.  We had a great time together. Once it was time to go to my office, Aliece played some Internet games and Aylee wrote a cool little computer program using the Python programming language. She really picked it up quite quickly! I was pretty amazed.

 

For lunch, we went to McDonald's and used a series of coupons to get hamburgers and ice cream cones. We only paid a buck, but we stuffed our faces nonetheless.

 

I brought them home around 1:30 or two o'clock. I then headed back to work to finish off the day.

 

It sure was fun to have the girls with me today. Tomorrow will be "take your son to work day". I am looking forward to that just as much!

Jim?

Once in while I like to change my profile picture on Facebook to be something funny. I am pretty handy at Photoshop and therefore I can usually do it in about three minutes. Today, I thought it would be funny to put my face on a bodybuilder. After I had finished it and submitted it to Facebook, I took a look at the picture to admire my artwork and discovered that the bodybuilder looked more like mom's twin brother, Jim, then it did me!

 

I was so stunned by it, that I e-mailed it to Jim and Nedra and gave them a call and had them check it out. I explained to them that I had pasted my picture on a body builder and that it looked just like Jim.  When Jim opened up the picture he laughed and laughed and said that he got the joke. I heard him tell Nedra in the background that I had grabbed a picture of himself and put it on the bodybuilder. I then heard Nedra asked Jim where I would've found a picture of him. Jim told her that I had lots of pictures of him.

 

I had to interrupt their discussion to explain to them that I was not kidding when I told them that the picture was of me on the bodybuilder -- not Jim. They finally realized that I was telling the truth.

 

I know that mom has always said that I looked like Jim. However, this picture was the clincher for me!

Motorcyle Dude

Jace loves to ride the motorcycle. Often, when I get home he will come running out of the house and went to the motorcycle and want to ride. I'll often entertain him by having him go get his helmet and come with me around the block. The entire time that we ride the bike, he makes motorcycle engine noises up and down the street.  It is fun to see him get such a kick out of it.

Protection

Aliece had a hard time finishing up her chores yesterday before it was time to eat. One of her chores was to have a piano lesson with Amber. Since it took too long, Amber told her that she would be unable to teach Aliece a piano lesson that day. I then told Aliece that she needed to pay for that piano lesson since she let it go to waste. I told her that I pay mom for her piano lessons in their two dollars a lesson.  I said that I would pay for her lessons as long as she was ready and attended each lesson. But on the day that she missed her piano lesson I would still have to pay Amber and thus Aliece would have to pay me. (I guess this is a little stretch of the truth -- but it is built upon principle)

 

Amber and I gave Aliece the option to pay for her missed piano lesson with either money from her bank account or in dandelions. As you may remember she gets paid one penny for every dandelion that gets picked. She chose to pay for her lesson for dandelions.

 

After her chores, and after dinner she went outside to start her task. She had a hard time sticking with that though. She kept coming in and telling me that she was afraid of bees that were flying around her. Then she would come in and tell me that her hands were hurting from picking the dandelions. Then she would come in and talk about being afraid of some other bug. Finally, I told her that she should just wear a jacket to keep the bees and bugs off of her arms. I was surprised that she took me on this suggestion. With the 70° weather I figured that she would not be interested in wearing a jacket. A little while later I went outside to check on Aliece. Not only had she worn the jacket as I had suggested that she put on a face mask, gloves, and other items to keep as much of her body as possible from being exposed to bugs flying around the yard.

 

I really wonder what the neighbors thought of this!

Spring in Arbon

You can tell it is spring in Arbon when people from town come out and check out the canyons and try out their FWD's. This weekend is a good example. When I took Mom to the hospital for some minor surgery Kevin North's wife came in and we visited a while. She is a nurse there. She asked if I had heard about the couple who got stuck in Bull canyon. I told her I had not so she got me a newspaper and showed me the story.
I seem a couple decided to try out their four wheeled drive vehicle and see if they could go over Bull canyon to Knox Canyon. About five miles into the canyon they got stuck in a snow drift. (first clue they might not make it over the top). They had good tires and made it out the other side only to get stuck again and again until they slid off the road and couldn't go any further. The wife, prepared with her cellphone decided to hike up the canyon and up the hill to see if they could get cell service. after a while her husband caught up with her and they went further up. (Not the best idea). Getting no service and running low on battery in the cell and low on light they spent the night. They spent the next day trying to get cell service and trying to climb out they spent another night in the canyon. Finally they reached the top of the canyon and with what little battery they had they called 911 and had lifeflight rescue them Monday. The whole story sounded a little humorously scarey and I told Jo about it.
Last night after I brought Mom home I got a phone call from an old friend. She told me some friends of hers needed some help and asked if I might be able to help. They were the ones in the story. They didn't know how to get their car out of the canyon. I told her I would see if someone might be able to help them. A little while later The fellow in the story called and told me all about it. I guess they were very exhausted, dehydrated and hungry when they were rescued. He kept telling me about his military training and how it helped. I had to bite my tongue as he was telling me all about it. All they had to do was walk down the way they came for about an hour or two at the most and they would have been at Alan Larsen's house. They passed it on the way up the first day. I guess a little military training is a dangerous thing. A perfect example of how one wrong decision can have a potentially disasterous consequence.
I talked to Alan and he said he would help them but couldn't until Friday. Alan also told me he had to pull another couple out a couple weeks ago. They only had to spend one night out there. That was a guy and his (probably now ex) girlfriend.

Hey, IT'S SPRING!!!!!!!!

Dandelion Hunt

You can tell that spring is here since the first flowers that have arrived in our yard are the beautiful, lush, yellow dandelions. They have come up quite quickly. In an effort to thwart their progress I told the kids that I would pay them one penny for every dandelion flower and five cents for every dandelion root that they were able to pick. Aylee and Aliece were excited to earn some money and got out there and got busy. Aylee earned three dollars and Aliece earned a dollar. Johnathan gave it a halfhearted attempt and earned a whopping 12 cents. Alayna never made it past the trampoline.

 

Aylee and Aliece picked nearly every single dandelion in the yard. That was quite an accomplishment.  I told her not to worry, if they wanted to earn more money there will probably be hundreds more tomorrow.

Jace is Growing Up!

I cannot believe how much Jace is growing up! Amber snapped this picture of him eating an ice cream cone after family home evening tonight. It is only a matter of months before he is not the "baby" of the family anymore. They grow up way too fast!

Betty Crocker

As I mentioned in a blog post a couple of weeks ago, our family has begun purchasing fewer prepared food items in order to save money. When we went on our trip to California last week, we all had prepared homemade food items that lasted us throughout the week. In fact, besides our gas, amusement park tickets, and hotel room, we only spent $60 on the entire trip. For the way down, we had chopped vegetables that Amber had prepared earlier that week. I had made a huge bucket of popcorn. Amber had made granola bars and cookies. We had a huge assortment of homemade foods for the trip up and back.

 

While we were down in California, we made our own food with the products that we packed from home. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches were our staple. Homemade granola bars and cookies were our treats. Amber had also purchased a brick of cheese a few days earlier and cut it up into little cubes family snacked on that all week long.

 

On Friday night, we knew we had spent no money on the trip for food. So, we splurged and went to a restaurant for our final evening in California. It was good food, but we were grateful that we only did at one time. We spent nearly $50 in that one sitting. It is getting expensive to feed our growing family. Also, on our way home we rewarded our kids for being such good sports on the homemade food front and for being such good travelers by stopping at a Dairy Queen in spending about $10 on ice cream treats.

 

Well, today was no exception. Despite all the catch up work associated with being gone for nearly a week, Amber spent a portion of the day making homemade tortilla shells for dinner, homemade granola bars for snacks during the week, and some homemade muffins for our breakfast meals as well as sack lunches for the kids to take to school. I was really amazed that Amber had the energy and the time to make all of these things today. I do not know how she accomplishes everything that she does. (Not to mention that she wrote letters to missionaries, did some visiting teaching, taught a piano lesson, played in the yard with Alayna, helped kids with their homework, and had lunch with me!)

Killin' those Yeller Jackets

Tonight I noticed my neighbor out working their yard. We stopped to talk for a minute and I found out that he was out spraying for yellow jackets. He said that Wal-Mart was having a special on the spray and that he was heading back to Wal-Mart to purchase half a dozen cans. I gave him a $10 bill and asked him to go buy some cans for us while he was at it.

 

Right after our family home evening activities, I donned my yard work clothes and went hunting for yellow jackets. I used up three cans of the spray. I sure hate yellow jackets in the summer.

 

Last year, I read on the Internet that the best time to kill yellow jackets is in the springtime. It is in the spring that the Queen is out and about finding and starting the nests. Also, it is cooler in the spring. The yellow jackets don't move as quickly. If you can get the majority of the Queen Yellowjackets while they are busy working in the early months of the year you can decimate a potential population of Yellowjackets during the summer. If you wait until the heat of the summer, the Queens are no longer out and all you do is kill the new hatchlings and the worker insects. The Queens continue to produce more Yellowjackets and your battle is never-ending. Hopefully my three cans of bug spray went to good use tonight!

The Nerds

Yesterday night, after a full day at LegoLand and the beach, we went to a restaurant for dinner.  At the beginning of our meal, Johnathan had asked Amber to explain what a "Nerd" was.  She didn't quite know how to explain it and asked me for help.  I didn't want to say, "Hey, son, just look at your parents and you will know the definition."  So, we let it rest for a bit. 

 

Later on during the meal, Aylee and Johnathan were complaining geometric stuff that I didn't even understand.  They were talking about pentagonal prisms and other shapes and what their properties would be.

 

Seeing a perfect opportunity to explain what a nerd was, I stopped John in his conversation and said, "John, you wanted to know what a nerd is?"  He said, yeah.  I said, "well, nerds are the type of people who like to talk about pentagonal prisms for fun at a restaurant." 

 

Johnathan didn't think it was funny like Amber, Aylee, and I, even though they were part of the discussion too. Johnathan had a confused look on his face still.  He said, "I don't understand, still."  I opened my mouth to give him a better explanation, when he continued explaining his confusion.  "You see," he said, "I am reading a book right now and the main character got hit in the nerds and it was really painful." 

 

When his true meaning donned on the rest of the 9+ year olds at the table, we were all laughing.  Amber laughed so hard she nearly pee'd her pants - and we all know that is a dangerous state for Amber - especially when pregnant.

 

Well, I didn't want to explain to Johnathan in the restaurant around his laughing sister and mother that what he really read was "nards", not "nerds", and what that is, so I guess I'll have to break it to him sometime this weekend before he asks his teacher at school for some clarification.

Amber & Alayna Flying Together

Being pregnant, Amber did not get to go on very many rides at Legoland (as we expected).  This one one of the few rides Amber got to go on.  She and Alayna were buddies for this airplane flight ride.  They were sure cute together!

Aliece and Alayna having fun in line

Aliece and Alayna wanted their picture taken together while we waited in line for a kid jousting ride here at legoland.

They get to ride a fake horse along a track. They are pretty excited. The lines are long - this one claims we'll be waiting 30 minutes!

Making sure Dad gets enough sleep

Now that we are in California, we are on Pacific time rather than mountain time.  I woke up about 5AM pacific time, which is my normal sleeping-in time in Provo (6AM).  It is still dark in the hotel room and everyone is fast asleep, so I grabbed the laptop and did some catching up on emails and such to stay out of trouble and keep the kids in a sleeping state.

 

A few minutes ago, Aliece roused from her slumber and saw me awake.  Luckily it was still dark so she thought I hadn't gone to bed yet and that it was just late at night. 

 

She was obviously worried about my sleeping habits - especially around our special LegoLand vacation.  She said, "Pops, why are you still awake.  You need to get back to bed so that you won't be tired tomorrow."

 

I replied that I would be getting some sleep in a while.

 

She cautioned me once more before falling back to sleep, "Well, OK, but you are going to be tired.  You better hurry."

 

I am glad that I have so many girls to keep track of me and watch out for my well being!

Beach Exposure

Today was Day #1 of our trip to California, and LegoLand.  We left a rainy and snowy Utah at 7AM and made our way to California.  It was so windy and wet all the way down to California that we saw about 5 separate rollover accidents - all being attended to by local police in the area of the accident.  Two major accidents involved semi trucks with their cargo laying all over the freeway - blowing in the wind.

 

We arrived here about 6PM San Diego time.  Our hotel has complimentary dinner bar so we stuffed ourselves there and then ran to the nearest beach to let the kids see the ocean.  It is the first time, in the kids' memory at least, that they had experienced the ocean.  Despite the temperature being 57 degrees outside, they had a great time trying out the waves on their feet.  By the time Johnathan, Aliece, and Alayna had all fallen into the water by the strong waves, everyone was ready to get back to the hotel and warm up.

 

They were pretty amazed by the ocean though.  It reminds me of the first time I saw the ocean.  I was 15 years old.  I had traveled with Vance & JoAnn Ward's family to Oregon.  I remember just truly being amazed at the wide expanse and massive body of the ocean.  I wanted to just walk up and down the beach by my self contemplating how something so great could exist.  It may sound funny, but it really made me contemplate God more.  The ocean is truly awesome!

 

It was fun to have that same context in my memory as I watched the kids facinate themselves with the large water mass. 

Our Easter Activities the Past Weekend

I just made another video regarding our Easter weekend. However, this video is a more upbeat and funny one that outlines the various activities that we took on during Saturday and part of Sunday to celebrate Easter. The kids had a great time, and by the end of the weekend, Amber and I were bushed! It is so much fun to be parents of small kids. I hope our children continue to be so much fun even through their teenage years -- I can't imagine not having fun with this very active crew!

 

Click on the following link to see our little video:

 

http://ht4.org/veep211

Janae's First Letter

Thank you mom for typing up Janae's letter from the MTC! Hopefully she can start e-mailing very soon so that you can just forward her letters to us. It sounds like they are able to e-mail their since I have seen a few of Ashley Call's and e-mails.

 

After family home evening, Amber printed up Janae's letter. We had baked some cookies together, and so Amber read the letter to the kids while they sat around the counter eating their peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. It was a hit for everyone! The cookies in no way compared to being able to hear from Janae.

Outdoorsman

Now that spring has started, Jace loves to be outdoors. It is a torment to him to have to stay indoors during rainy days or darkening afternoons. If he had his way, he would be outdoors 24 hours of the day. When you bring him into the house he just screams and waits by a door pointing out the window wanting to be out for the action is.

 

His latest activity outside is to find a window into the house. He will go and plop his face up against the window and here in to everything going on in the house. You would think that he wanted to be inside with everyone else. However, the moment you open the door to bring him and he'll scream his head off.

 

It is fun to see him enjoy being outside and playing with the other kids. It is a good thing he is a tough kid. Just yesterday, Alayna was on the swing in Jace walked by got knocked to the ground as he has no judgment with regard to pendulum actions. But, he was up and running in no time.

Aylee teaching about Easter

On Easter Sunday, Aylee took some time to prepare a lesson for our family. She put together a bunch of plastic Easter eggs and place different objects inside of them. She then had each child take a turn opening one of the eggs. She would then explain how the contents of that egg applied to the Easter story. She had objects such as thorns for the crown of thorns placed on the Savior's head; cloth to represent the linens that his body was wrapped in; and coins for the 30 pieces of silver traded in for Jesus's life.

 

It was a creative way to help the kids recall the different parts of the Easter story. Aylee is an amazing daughter who loves to help teach and nurture her younger brothers and sisters.

An Easter Message from the Andersen Kids

Yesterday, we summarized the lessons learned by the kids over the last few days during the morning scripture sessions provided by Amber earlier this week.  I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend!

 

See our video at: http://ht4.org/abloom125

Finding Peace in a Chaotic World

We had such a great time with the kids yesterday as we did a majority of our Easter celebrations on Saturday.  We filled the kids full of sugar, did a bunch of activities, etc.  By the end of the night, Amber and I were worn out while the kids were on cloud nine.

 

Amber tried to escape the noise and the activity that seemed to follow her around the house.  She broke out her music and started playing a beautiful rendition of "I Stand All Amazed".  Despite the noise and activity surrounding her, she hung onto the music and found a little Easter in the conclusion of our day.

 

Here is just a few seconds of the action going on while Amber was "finding peace".

 

http://ht4.org/shell652

 

 

Preparing for Easter

I have been out of commission for most of the our family scriptures sessions this week due to early meetings at work, etc.  Amber has been running them without me. 

 

On Friday I was finally here in the morning to participate in family scriptures.  Amber has been going over the Easter story on a day by day basis with the kids.  Each morning, she has set up pictures from the gospel art kit and told stories of that day's happenings as they pertain to the Easter events.  So, yesterday, we went over the events that took place on Easter Friday.

 

It was a pretty cool Idea.  I am always amazed at the different things she does to teach the kids.  If there was ever a good choice I have made in my life, it was to marry Amber! 

13-1

A-Team

Amber had a love and logic class last night. While she was gone to that, I had the kids get ready for bed, and I popped some popcorn. I went onto the Internet and set the TV up for us to watch an episode of the "A-Team".  The kids always get a kick out of watching that show. I always enjoy watching with them. I used to love the A-Team when I was their age. It is fun to see them get all excited about it too.

 

This particular episode involved a senior citizen center. During a couple of scenes, the senior citizens were out with their wheelchairs, canes, and walkers beating up bad guys alongside of the A-Team. The kids were hooting and hollering. They thought that was the greatest thing. I got a bigger kick out of watching the kids than I did the show.

Cutting Costs

With the recent economic crisis looming over our heads, Amber and I discussed ways that we could cut some of our monthly costs. We thought of some ideas together, but then decided that we should involve the kids in this discussion. So, Amber decided to bring this up during our dinner time last night.

 

Amber explained the situation to the kids and told them of some of the things that we spend money liberally on an asked for their advice. The kids took great ownership in this discussion. They were excited to be part of the idea generation activity to help us manage our expenses better.

 

Some of the more humorous suggestions came, of course, from our younger children. Alayna suggested that when we go to the store to buy our food that we talk to the store clerk that takes our money and explained to them that we are trying to spend less money. She said that maybe they wouldn't take so much of our money when we buy our groceries. In great 7-year-old wisdom, Aliece helped to correct her younger sister by saying, "Alayna, the store person can do that for us because they give all that money to their boss." That ended Alayna's idea.

 

But Aliece was not only one to criticize, she came up with an idea of her own. She mentioned the time last year when she went outside with cups of ice to sell them. She was out there so long without a purchase that the ice cubes to melted and so she decided to sell cups of water. Of course no one purchased these refreshing drinks and so Amber snuck over to the neighbors house and gave them $.25 and asked him to go by some water from Aliece. Aliece does not know that Amber had done this, so her suggestion was that she go outside and sell water more often to help the family earn money.

 

Aylee and Johnathan were more practical in their suggestions. They talked about eating less cereal and making more of our breakfasts. We talked about all their granola bars of the kids like to snack on. They have jumped up in price lately, and so Aylee suggested that we make our own granola bars. That went into discussion about making her muffins another popular snacks and school lunch items.

 

Aylee finally took our discussion to action, after dinner she went to the Internet and printed out a recipe for making granola bars. By the time I came home from a meeting that evening, I found a pan of granola bars sitting on the counter. It tastes pretty good!

 

I'm grateful to Amber for her idea of involving the children in some of our financial discussions. While we are not in a financial predicament in our family, we still believe that it is wise to start cutting some of our expenses so that we can be in the mode of being more self-sufficient should that time arrives. It sounds like we have a good support group from our children. It is great to be part of an awesome family.

She's off to Serve a Mission!

Yesterday was the big day for Janae. She was scheduled to enter the MTC at 11:30 AM on Wednesday, April 8. All of the family came down Tuesday night. Mom, dad, and Janae stopped by our house on Tuesday afternoon so the kids could spend some time with Janae. We were getting things ready to rush off to Aylee's orchestra performance, so we didn't get more than an hour to visit and be with one another.

 

After their visit to our house, the rest of the family met up at Jake and Shantell's house for an evening of pizza and visiting. Joe rolled in around 11:00 PM. Jake ran up to the airport and picked Joe up.

 

On Wednesday morning, we all met at the Village Inn restaurant for breakfast. Amber and I decided to keep the kids out of school and have them come with us just because they didn't get much time to say goodbye to Janae the prior evening. We all really had a good time just sitting around the table eating our pancakes and sausages -- laughing and talking the entire time. Janae sure looked great and seemed excited to embark on this next stage in her life.

 

After breakfast, we took the kids to school and met up with the rest of the family at the MTC. It brought back a flood of memories to be walking the sidewalks of the MTC. It was fun to get back there and to feel the spirit of missionary's and their excitement for the work that they've been called to do.

 

Janae practically radiated a positive and enthusiastic light the entire time we were there. We finally arrived at the big Chapel where they give this small orientation and let us say our goodbyes. Tears and excitement were all mixed together as we gave our final hugs and wished her luck for the next 18 months.

 

Good luck Janae!

Missing Janae Already

Aliece is such a cute girl. Last night, Aliece must have realized the true impact of Janae going on a mission and entering the MTC this week. Aliece went over to Amber before bedtime and said, "Janae is going to be gone for a long time on her mission. I am going to miss Janae." She then got all sad and snuggled up to Amber. Aliece finished up, "his dad going to miss Janae to?" Amber explained to her that we will miss her just like we miss her uncle Jake. However, they are doing important work and we will be able to write to them each week.

 

This Wednesday Janae goes into the MTC. Were really excited for you Janae! We'll be rooting for you and praying for you.

Fun with General Conference

Well, another general conference has come and gone. Once again, Amber did a terrific job preparing the kids as well is preparing fun activities for them. In fact, the kids were so excited about conference they kept talking about it all week long. On Friday night Aliece kept coming down the stairs saying that she and Alayna couldn't go to sleep because they were so excited for conference. And justly following, both Saturday and Sunday mornings they were the first two to get up due to their excitement.

 

On Friday, I asked Alayna what her favorite part of conference is. I chuckled at her response when she replied, "I love the part where they show the Temple and all the flowers." While that has nothing to do with the talks that are given during conference, though shots before and after the each conference session are a staple to the video feed for conference. I thought it was funny that this was the thing that Alayna remembered and loved most about watching general conference. Sure enough, as we watched conference this weekend I made sure that Alayna got to see the Temple and flowers in both introduction and conclusion of each session.

 

As part of our date on Friday, Amber and I went to the craft store and bought several one dollar projects for the kids. These included knickknacks for painting, wooden models that could be painted afterwards, stickers, and beads that kids create designs with and use an iron to melt and become decorative objects.  Aylee is getting to the age where she also wanted to provide activities for her siblings. She spent hours creating crossword puzzle type activities on the computer for the kids. Amber also printed out a conference activity booklet that she received in her e-mail from some of her friends. Also, in preparation for our baby coming in June, Amber also had a quilting project out. As if crafts were not enough to keep them busy for conference, every one of the kids did some sort of cooking project during each of the sessions. Aylee made a terrific graham cracker, peanut butter, chocolate dessert that was big enough to last us all weekend long. It was very good! Aliece spent the entire first session using her easy bake oven to make small fairy cookies that she then and decorated with Alayna, put on a fancy platter, and delivered to each member of our family -- and then to the neighbors. During different sessions of conference I worked with Alayna and Johnathan separately to make different batches of chocolate suckers.

 

I made a quick little video of our conference weekend activities and thought I would share with you. You can see it by going to the following link: http://ht4.org/pretty315

 

Of course, Amber and I both enjoyed the different comments that are kids made about the various talks and conference. One general authority, a member of the 70 and a foreigner, was speaking with an accent. Many of his "ch" sounds came out as "sh".  One part of his talk centered around making choices in choosing the right. The kids exclaimed, "why does he keep talking about shoes?" Amber and I laughed and explained to them that he had an accent and that he was trying to talk about choosing. So when they were hearing the word shoes he was actually saying choose.

 

Another funny thing that the kids brought up during conference happened during another member of the 70s talk. He was using a GPS device as an example of guidance from the Holy Ghost. During that talk I had to go into the other room for a minute. Alayna came running into other room all excited. As the man kept talking about the GPS device Alayna told me, "daddy, I think this man is talking about geo-caching!" I thought it was pretty good that she associated the GPS device with geo-caching. It tickled my heart to see a glimpse of the type of understanding the simple minds try to have on more complex ideas and talks given by adults.

 

After the very final session of general conference, Amber and I looked around the house. With all the activities that we perform together as a family, the entire downstairs looked as if a tornado hit a craft exposition. We had food ingredients scattered around, crowns and the floor, papers and scraps flung everywhere. Toy models and wooden projects lingered here and there. One of the last speakers in that session had talked about how our home should be a Temple. He also mentioned that it should be neat and clean. Amber grab the kids and I referred to that talk. That got them motivated and we all pitched in working on one room at a time. We gave ourselves 10 minutes on each room and worked hard to get clean.

 

Within just a short time, our house was clean and all evidence of all our projects was gone. Just before bedtime, we let the kids see our conference video and gave them hugs and kisses and sent them off to their bedrooms.

 

Keeping five kids active and attentive during four sessions of conference can be exhausting! Amber and I were ready for bed by 9:30 PM. However, it was another successful conference in my book. Conference, like Christmas, seems to be more magical when young kids are around and share their awe at the experience with you.

Harry "Jace" Potter

The other day, the kids introduced Jace to the power of a magic wand.  I took the following video of him attacking me with several Hogwart-worthy curses.

 

You can see the video at:  http://ht4.org/host320

A Wintery Airport Field Trip

The other day Alayna's preschool class had a field trip to the Provo airport. Alayna was so excited for this field trip that she kept counting down several days before hand. The day of her field trip she woke up excited to go. Amber and I didn't have the heart to tell her that there was a new layer of snow on the ground.

 

Despite the cold weather and snow, the preschool class trekked to the airport. Alayna had a great time learning about airplanes and helicopters. She even got to sit in the airplane.

 

Another part of the field trip that Alayna was very excited about was the planned picnic at our nearby park. However, due to the wintry conditions, they decided against having lunch at the park. Luckily, Amber was there as a chaperone to the field trip. She had Alayna invite several of the kids in her class to come to our home and have a picnic on our playroom floor. This broke the group up enough that the remainder of the children could go to preschool teacher's home for their picnic.

 

Alayna and several of the girls had a great time eating their sack lunches and laughing and talking. It was the perfect end to their wintry aviation field trip.

Are we having a fight?

This morning Alayna was telling Johnathan that she wanted to kiss him.  She was singing it in a song that she made up.  Johnathan retorted by making up a different tune and saying that he did not want her to kiss him.  They kept this up for a few minutes and then Alayna stopped and said, "Are we having a fight?" and then with an excited voice she answered her own question, "Yes we are!"

 

Then they went on playing again.