What a Funny Name

Amber just related an incident that she had with Alayna a few days ago.  Alayna was talking to Amber and the conversation went something like this...

 

Alayna: "Mom, the other day when we were in Arbon, there was someone named Hand."

Amber: "Really?"

Alayna: "Yes, don't you think that is a strange name?"

Amber (Still wondering who she would be talking about):  "Yes, honey, it is a different name."

Alayna: "Mom, you won't name our new baby, Hand, will you?"

Amber: "No, dear, we won't name our baby Hand"

Alayna: "Yeah, it is a weird name...he taught us in our primary class"

 

It was then that Amber realized that she was talking about Hans Hayden.

 

Amber: "Oh, you mean Hans"

Alayna: "Yeah, Hands"

Geocaching Resurrected

Our Spokane visit this weekend was really fun. It was great to be with everyone and to visit and play together. For part of the day on Saturday Brett and I took the older kids geo-caching for a couple of hours while the younger kids went with Amber and Ashlee to the museum.

 

We found about four or five geo-caches during that time. It was fun to see spring arriving to allow these activities to take place. It has been several months since we have been out geo-caching as a family. It was great to dust off the GPS and go hunting again.

Johnathan and the case of the Killer Seat Belts

As many of you know our family went up to Spokane this past weekend. We left at noon on Thursday and started the long trip. We stopped off in Pocatello to use the bathroom and fill up with gas. As I was getting out of the suburban to start the pump I heard Johnathan freaking out. I went over to the other side of the suburban and got into the back seat where Johnathan was. He was kicking and screaming. I had him calm down so that I could look at the situation. His foot had somehow gotten twisted up in the seat belt as he had unlocked it and tried to get out of the suburban. I don't know how his foot got twisted up in their but it was in that state where it would only tighten and not loosen up. I had to calm him down and work with the seat belt before I finally got it unraveled from off his foot.

 

I gave Johnathan a lecture about messing around and then sent him off into the gas station for his bathroom break.

 

We made good time and decided to stop in Dillon for our next break. As I was getting out of the suburban I once again heard Johnathan freaking out. I had lost my temper and was really going to give him a lecture. As I climbed into the back of the suburban to yell at Johnathan I saw that instead of having his foot caught in the seatbelts, he had the seatbelts twisted around his stomach. Again, the seat belt was in the state where would only retract and not loosen up. The more he screamed and wiggled around the tighter the seat belt got. I was both frantic and angry at the same time. Who in the world gets their seat belt wrapped around their body in such a contorted fashion? I could not understand how he had managed to get into this precarious position. At the same time, I was scared to death because I was not sure how in the world I was going to get him untangled. I was worried that he would continue flailing around enough that it would cut off his air supply. I had 1 million things going on in my brain at one time. I even had the thought of how I would run into the gas station and get a knife so that I could free him before he passed out. However, luckily the better judgment side of my brain helped me keep my cool. I calmed Johnathan down and analyzed the situation. The only way I could get Johnathan freed up was to hold onto the seatbelts so that it would not tighten anymore, lift Johnathan up with my other hand and turn him upside down and flipped his body around so that the deadly loop could be undone.

 

Now that I had Johnathan free from the seat belt I shook my head and an asked him repeatedly how in the world he got into that situation. Just as the time before, he was simply clueless. As I thought about the situation a little bit more, I think I discovered what the problem was. I asked him if he ever move the shoulder belt underneath his arm instead of over his shoulder. He said that he had. I believe that he kept the seat belt under his armpit for a while. When he went to put the belt over his shoulder again, I think he put the wrong part of the belt up over his body -- namely the lap belt instead of the shoulder belt. This is the only way that I can see that he could get into this position.

 

I am always amazed that some of the things that are kids get themselves into. I am even more astonished that they typically come out unscathed.

Chief Joseph

The other day Aylee was asked by her friend to portray chief Joseph from one of the historical reports that she was doing in class.

 

In order to look like an authentic Native American, Aylee used the Indian costume that mom made me when I was in elementary school myself. Amber did her hair up nicely and she really looked the part.

 

Amber was able to go to the school to watch the small performance. She said Aylee was awesome!

Basketball Jace!

We have been experiencing such beautiful weather over the past few
weeks that Jace has been taking advantage of going outdoors and
playing. Holding true to form, he heads straight to the basketball,
football, or any other round object. He loves to play ball.

A few weeks ago Jace had been practicing with the basketball. When I
got home from work, he lifted up the basketball their the hoop and
gave several pleading grunts. Being a linguist of child dialects I
understood that Jace wanted me to help him make a basket. I spend the
next few minutes lifting him up to the basket so that he could dunk
the ball. He laughed and laughed over and over again. It was fun to
see him get so much joy out of it.

In honor of the moment, I had Amber take a picture of me holding him
up to the hoop. I then doctored the photo a little bit and removed my
hands so that it would look like he was dunking the ball of his own
accord. I thought the picture turned out rather well!

Aliece turns Seven!

On March 13, Aliece had her seventh birthday. She spent the day with
many fun and exciting activities. Amber hosted a party for Aliece. The
theme of the party was a tea party. Our neighbor, Nicole Tucker, came
and helped with the party. She and Amber decked themselves out in fancy
dresses and helped welcomed the guests. Aylee and Johnathan also dressed
up and served as waiters and waitresses.

All of the children seemed to have a great time. They sipped their
drinks in many teacups and enjoyed small frosted cupcakes. It was a lot
of fun.

I cannot believe that Aliece is already seven years old. Only one more
year until she is old enough to be baptized. It is getting close enough
that she is actually starting to think seriously about the big choice ahead.

Dishwasher Installation Woes

Last week we found a great deal on a Maytag dishwasher. For those of
you that have been at our home lately, you know that we have to wash
many of our dishes by hand because of all the dirty dishes that are
not in our dishwasher after the wash cycle. This has been very
frustrating for us and has caused the search for dishwashers for quite
a long time. Anyway, last week we found a dishwasher that was a superb
price. It was just what we were looking for and it was on sale two
times over.

They had an installation option that we could take advantage of, but
it would cost an extra $125. Feeling a little testosterone I told
Amber that I could handle it. So we bought the dishwasher without
choosing the installation option. The dishwasher was scheduled to
arrive at our home Tuesday morning. On Monday night I disconnected our
old dishwasher and turned off the water and electricity before
removing the appliance.

The dishwasher arrived on Tuesday morning. I was hoping to install the
dishwasher that night, after a BYU dinner that Amber and I were
supposed to attend. The dinner went a little later than we had planned
so we didn't get home till about 9:00 PM. Excited about installing a
new dishwasher, I started unpacking it and getting it ready to
install. One of the kids in our absence had dropped a glass cup on the
floor in the kitchen. So as part of our preparation we cleaned that up
also. While we were cleaning up the glass, we noticed that a lot of
the floor was really wet. Earlier in the day, Amber had put a towel
down by the water hose that went into the old dishwasher. She had
noticed some wetness on the floor underneath the cabinet and thought
that there was some extra water in the hose that had drained out.
However, upon closer inspection we found out that the old water hose
was actually still sending water -- although it was at a small rate
that you couldn't really tell. We started pushing on the laminate
flooring and found the water would squeeze out through the seams and
through the edges. We knew we were in trouble. We stuck the end of the
water hose into a bucket and noticed that it was filling at a rate of
about 1 gallon every 4 hours. Given the fact that we had disconnected
the dishwasher about 20 hours earlier, we figure about 5 gallons of
water and slowly seeped into our laminate flooring. For some reason
the water turnoff valve under the sink did not fully turn off the
water.

I hurried off to Home Depot to grab some heaters and then I went to
Jake and Shantell's house to grab a fan. Instead of installing the
dishwasher that evening, we left fans and heaters on and pointed them
at the floor that night and for the day Wednesday.

Luckily, the floor did not get warped too badly. There are some seams
that are raised near the dishwasher and by the sink. Overall, it is
not bad enough that we feel like we need to repair it or replace it.
We spent all of last night finally installing our new dishwasher.
Hopefully I haven't done anything wrong that will cause more flooding
in the future!

After all the work was over and the potential damage was viewed to our
kitchen, that $125 sure seems like a small amount. I think next time
I'll be forking over the dough and let a professional do it.

If only this were the lottery!

I spent a good part of my day today contesting a credit card charge
that appeared on my bill a couple of weeks ago. My credit card
statement listed the merchant as the Utah County health Department. I
am the only one in our family that has ever been to the Utah County
health Department and that was last year as I was getting my
immunizations to go to India.

I called the health Department today to try to work out the problems
with my bill. After I finally was able to get a real person on the
phone I explained my situation to them. The person handling my case
was a woman that was very kind and patient. She asked me a lot of
questions and then also asked me to fax her a copy of my credit card
statement. She also asked me to contact my bank to see if they had any
other information on this charge.

The bank had no extra information, and so I just forwarded the
statement off to this gal at health department. It took her a few
hours today to do the research on this charge. However, just after
5:00 PM she called to tell me that she figured out the problem. She
explained that there was a woman in Arizona that was paying for some
services rendered at the health department earlier in February. The
woman wanted to pay using her flexible savings account for healthcare
issues. Somewhere between the woman reading her flexible spending
account number over the phone to the clerk and the clerk entering it
into the system one or more of the numbers were changed were
transposed such that it became my credit card number. That is how my
card got charged.

The woman at the health department apologize profusely and explained
to me that this had never happened in the history of the health
department. I can understand her claim, because credit cards are
designed with such long numbers that it is nearly impossible to
accidentally transpose the number on one card and get the number of
another card. I looked up on the Internet and found that the odds of
this happening are somewhere in the ballpark of one in a 1 trillion
chance. Wow! If only this were the lottery I would have been
considered a very lucky man.

I wanna be a big kid too!

Lately, Jace has really been tuned into being a big kid. He watches
his siblings and their mannerisms and he wants to be just like them.
Whether it is sitting in his own spot on the bench at church, or
sitting up to the table with the rest of us rather than in the high
chair he is big into equality

Today, his fight against age/size discrimination involved a big cup.
Due to his age he has still been assigned sippy cups that have lids
and stoppers in them. Today, he wanted to have a large cup to drink
in. However, we did not allow him to do this fearing that he would
create mess.

Jace decided to take matters into his own hands, however. He took his
sippy cup and inserted it into the larger plastic cup that he had
originally wanted to use. He then walked around holding the big cup
and drinking out of the sippy cup that was inside.

A House of Order

This week we have been reading scriptures and lessons in the morning
with the children. The topic of the week has been the role of the
father and the mother in the home. During our Scripture reading time,
we reviewed the Scripture: D&C 88:119

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a
house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a
house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;
"

After reading the Scripture, Amber asked the kids if we had a "house
of order". Johnathan answered quickly and said, "You bet we do! You
ORDER us to clean our rooms and we do it."

So, I guess if you go by Johnathan's definition our house has a lot of
order in it!

Goodbye Ford Pickup!

On Presidents' Day I had two people call me within 10 minutes of each other telling me that they were from out of town and they wanted to come and look at my pickup truck that was for sale. They both had really been interested in it and wanted to come take it for a drive. It is funny, because I have had the pickup up for sale for several months. I've had several people call on it, but few actually come and drive it. Being a holiday, that must've changed things a bit.

Both sets of individuals arrived at roughly the same time. I let the one they got there just before to give it a test drive. It drove it around the block and got out and said that they would take it. I had to send the other group away. We filled out the paperwork and sign the title off to the new owner.

While I am glad that I was able to sell the truck, I don't know what I'm going to do without it. We've used our truck for a lot of things. But, as Aylee suggested, I guess we'll have to haul the dirt for our yard in our Van. No, I am sure we should be able to find someone who would be willing to loan their truck to us for our jobs around the yard. However, it was just so nice to have it handy and not have to go look for anyone kind enough to lend us a truck for the day.

Ultrasound for baby #6

A few weeks ago we took our family to the doctor's office to get an ultrasound for baby number six. We had such a great time with the entire family for Jace's ultrasound (see http://arbonfarm.blogspot.com/2007/05/hello-baby-5.html) that we couldn't wait for our experience this time.

We had prepared the kids for the experience well before hand. We had the day planned out and we picked up the kids from the school early and headed to the doctor's office. Everything was going very smoothly. We arrived at the doctor's office right on time and I sat with the kids in the waiting room while Amber went to check-in. After 3 to 5 minutes of speaking at the desk Amber looked a little frustrated. She came back and said that the only place that they were doing ultrasounds today was at their American Fork office not the Orem one that we had just driven to. The nurse apologized for the scheduling mixup and we grabbed our kids and ran out the door.

We made the hurried detour to American Fork from Orem and arrived at the doctor's office about 15 minutes late. Of course, due to our late arrival, someone else had taken our spot and we were left to wait. The kids had brought their homework, books, and other activities to keep them quiet and busy. Before long, our children were spread out all over the waiting room floor. Aliece was spread eagle on her tummy on the floor doing her homework. Alayna was chasing Jace all around the waiting room. Aylee was sitting in another part of the waiting room floor reading a book, and Johnathan was giving an adult woman and her daughter an educational lecture about the different fish swimming around in the big waiting room aquarium.

After a semi long wait we were invited to come back into the ultrasound office. We herded the small children through the waiting room and into the ultrasound office. On our way, Aliece had been carrying Jace much to his dismay. He got angry and bit Aliece right on the face. Jace was crying, and now Aliece was crying. I got mad and tapped Jace on the lips to let them know that he is not supposed to bite. This got him into a screaming fit and I had to hold him through the tantrum. By the time the doctor came in, the kids were mostly settled down.

During the actual ultrasound the kids got animated and excited about the various video shots that they were seeing of their newest-to-be sibling. Halfway through the experience, though, Johnathan started to complain that his ear hurt. I asked him to please be quiet and to watch the ultrasound, but he still insisted. Being a parent, I figured there was a little bit more to this story so I asked him what his ear felt like. He told me that felt like there was something in there blocking his ear. Being the perceptive parent that I am I asked him if there was anything that he might have stuck in his ear. Sheepishly, he mentioned that he had been playing with a wad of paper "near his ear" and that it was probably that piece of paper that was stuck in there. I peered inside and sure enough deep down beyond my reach there was a little teeny corner of a much bigger wad lodged inside. I gave him a frustrated look and told him to pay attention to the ultrasound.

The ultrasound went well, and we did get it recorded onto tape -- however, since we realized walking out of the door of our house that we did not have a videotape, baby number six got its ultrasound recorded at the end of the movie, "Leon's truck" that mom made for us for Christmas one year. All of our other children have their ultrasounds of videotapes labeled "baby number one", or "Ultrasound - Aliece", etc. But no, baby number six has its ultrasound on the tape labeled "Leon's truck".

After the ultrasound was completed, we separated and asked a nurse if she could kindly remove the foreign paper object out of Johnathan's left ear. She laughed and quickly got an instrument and fished it out. It is hard to embarrass Amber and I anymore.

Also, we decided not to find out the gender of the baby at this ultrasound. We had a vote on the way up to the doctors office and it was a split vote. We decided to wait and let it be a surprise for us at the birth since this will be the final addition to our family.

Aylee Moves to Advanced Orchestra

Today was Aylee's first day of Advanced Orchestra at the elementary school.  Last week her orchestra teacher called Amber and asked if it would be OK for Aylee to move up from the beginner orchestra to the advanced orchestra.  She is the only one in the beginner orchestra to be moved up.

Aylee started orchestra just this fall.  She chose to play the violin.  She has really come a long way and she includes practice of the instrument in her daily chore routine.  Looks like it is paying off.  We're excited for her.

Valentine's Day

We had a fun Valentine's Day. We started off with a breakfast of heart pancakes, eggs and sausage. Then we headed off to the park to do some sledding. We took Chloe down with us a couple of times and then just sent her down on her own. She loved going solo and once we all got to the end she would just say "again" or "more". That girl has no fear!

We came back home and had some lunch and then went to Artic Circle for a .99 cent sundae. Chloe and I took a nice long nap while Dave worked on some projects and then that evening, Nae came to hang out with Chloe while Dave and I met up with some friends for a fun game night.

Chloe and Nae had a pizza party and made some delicious cup cakes for us when we returned home. They seemed to have quite a bit of fun also! It was an enjoyable day.

New Paint!

Ashlee came and visited (and I say that loosely - she ended up working most of the time she was down here) in Provo from Feb 3 through the 8th. While she was here, Amber and Ashlee were busy repainting our kitchen and living room. Painting was just the half of it...they also did a considerable amount of redecorating!

I tried to capture the room in a panoramic view, but the lighting was making the pictures go off on the color. You may need to click on the picture itself to see it larger.

It really changes the way the house looks. It is always fun to turn things around a bit!

Amber's Birthday

Thursday was Amber's birthday. We had a great, laid back day of fun. Amber and I went to lunch at TGIFridays. They had a two for one coupon on SlickDeals that week, so it seemed like a good place to go. Our waitress was very slow and took her time doing things like getting us our bill - namely 20 minutes after we asked for it. Other than that, we had a fun time.

That evening we then went to dinner (yes, again - twice in the same day) to Macaroni Grill. We took the kids with us there and we all enjoyed ourselves.

We knew we were going to be eating a ton that day due to two restaurant visits, so Amber didn't want a cake of any kind. Instead, Amber and I helped Aliece make mini cupcakes the day before. (Aliece had gotten a "Fairy" cookbook from the library earlier in the week). Then, on Amber's birthday, Johnathan was bored, so Amber had him help her frost and decorate her birthday cupcakes. I know it makes me sound like a louse - but I was at work, and Amber thought it would be fun - I swear!

So, at bedtime, we sang the final birthday song and we each had one of the mini-fairy-cupcakes. Hmmm....fairies taste pretty good, actually :-).

Wild Andersen Girls

If you can't see this video here, you can click on the following link:
http://ht4.org/softie213

The other day, Aliece got Amber to spontaneously do a little spunky dance while simultaneously tossing red valentines streamers and pink flower petals in the air.

Wow! This is my household!

High Chair Graduate

Just in the past week or so, Jace decided that he had had enough of the baby high chair business. He started to refuse to sit in his high chair in lieu of sitting at the table with everyone else.

We have met on a compromise--we have attached our travel high chair to one of our table chairs and now we scoot him up to the table with the rest of us at meal time. He has been somewhat appeased.

Jace is at that stage where he doesn't want to be considered a baby. He is starting to notice that he is "unjustly" prevented from participating on many of the same activities as his older siblings and it drives him nuts!

Too Cold to Play in the Snow?

The other day, Aliece wanted to build a snowman, but either she didn't want to get too cold being outside, or we wouldn't let her go outside. Anyway, she decided to bring the snow indoors. She piled a bunch of snow on this cookie sheet and spent time working on her snow creation.

January Daddy Date with Aliece & Alayna

In January, I took Aliece and Alayna on their Daddy Date. We thought we would take the camera along with us to have some fun with it.

We started the date at McDonald's, of course. Then we went to the Animal Science Museum at BYU. The kids had a great time looking at all of the animals and watching a live demonstration on Reptiles!

We made a little movie about the date and you can see it below:



If you can't see the video here, go to the following URL:
http://ht4.org/quasi814

Washing the Floors

If you cannot see the movie above, you can click on the following url:
http://ht4.org/acorn425

The other day, Aliece wanted to be paid to wash the kitchen floor. I taught her how to do it and she set to work. It looked like so much fun, Jace decided that he wanted in on the action. It was really fun to watch the two of them work together.

Budding Artist

Jace has become a regular artist. About a month ago he really got into coloring. He scribbles all over his paper, the table, white doors, and big walls. We have so many markings all over the house now, it is incredible. We have a hard time policing his pencil use. Any time he finds a writing instrument, it is instantly in his hands and running all over the nearest flag surface!

Don't you wish you could sleep anywhere?

 

The other day Alayna was complaining about being tired. I can't remember if she was heading to bed and just decided to call it quits on the stairs, or if she was playing on the stairs and decided that now was as good a time as any. Either way, I could never get up from that position and walk straight again!

Pay It Forward

PaY it FoRwArd

Here's how it works-the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive, at some point during the year, a handmade gift from me.

~

What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise! The catch is that you must participate as well-before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going.

~

Then come back, let me know you're going to play, and sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift! Remember that only the first 3 comments will receive a gift from me, so be quick!"I'll be waiting for your comments with baited breath to see who the lucky winners are....

Singing Time!

Oops. . .didn't mean to post that last one already :)

Chloe is our singer. She loves to sing and sings throughout the day. It's fun to hear her make up songs and play on her keyboard. The other day I shot this little clip I thought was cute and wanted to share. She doesn't always get all the words and sometimes it's funny to see what she comes up with instead.

Some evenings we'll get out our little hymn books or the Children's song book and she loves it. She'll sing songs with us for as long as we'll sing.

Singing Time!

Chloe is 2!

Wow! I can't believe my baby is 2! It's been a week and a half since her birthday but I thought I would write a bit about her special day. For breakfast, she had oatmeal with a candle in it. She thought that was pretty neat. We had to keep lighting it and letting her blow it out over and over. I figured it was her birthday so I'd be patient.

We woke up to about 6 inches of new wet snow, perfect for building a snowman! The weather was really quite warm also and it was so fun to be outside without freezing our appendages off. I shoveled the drive way and the car off and man was that a work out! Chloe kept saying . . . Frosty the Snowman mom! So, then we decided to build a snowman. We spent a couple hours playing in the snow and it was so fun!

For lunch, we met Nae at McDonald's and let Chloe play on the toys why we visited.

When Dave got home, we packed up, picked up Nae and headed to Arbon for Chloe's party. We had pizza for dinner and then opened presents. She was so excited with everything she got. It was a chore to encourage her to keep opening her gifts. We still have one from Christmas that we ended up saving for her birthday and then a couple more from her birthday. I figured we might as well take our time and when she gets bored someday with all her new activities, then we'll open a present. After presents, we had cake and ice cream. Check out that awesome lady bug cake! That's my first cake and it was a lot of fun. Chloe was really excited about it also. We sure had a fun day!

Aliece and her Luck

Any of you who know Aliece, also know that she is often a person of
good luck. She has won so many "random" prizes at carnivals, parties,
stores, etc, it is almost ridiculous.

On Friday, the school was having a reading event in the library. All
of our kids went to the event along with tons of other students at the
school. During the event they had a random drawing and guess who won
-- Aliece JoAnn of course! Her prize was a magnetic note pad which
she now cherishes.

The other day, Aliece got the following (very accurate) fortune from a
fortune cookie. Here is what it read:

"You are heading for a land of sunshine. You will always have good
luck in your personal affairs."

I think that pretty much sums up Aliece!

A New Clue

Johnathan and Aylee were so excited about having Adee and Adam teach them how to play Clue that they spent a part of their Sunday creating a clue game of their own.

The kids have a special kind of bead and bead boards where they make designs on these boards with these plastic beads. Once they are done, they run an iron over the top of them and it melts the beads together. They are used for decorations and patterns.

Aylee and Johnathan both used the beads to create their own versions of the popular game, clue.




This picture is of the game that Aylee made. Johnathan made his first, and Aylee 's game looks similar to his. If you can tell from the photo, each of the corners of the bead board are a room in the game. Each game piece is a color of its own and has three beads melted together. They had a variety of weapons also which include a grenade, a gun, a pipe, a hoe, etc. They also made clues as well as detective sheets.

I played the game with them this evening before bedtime. It actually worked very well. I jumped the gun on a conclusion and lost the game, but Johnathan followed up and won the game five minutes later. I am often amazed at the creativity that my children have. It is one thing they must get from their mother.

Jace's Treat

While I was off at church meetings today Amber was typing a letter to her brother Jake. Jace likes to get into the office and mess things up and pull books off of shelves. Amber had shut the office doors to keep him out. However, with the comings and goings of all the kids to ask Amber questions during her letterwriting time, the office store ended up being left open and Jace snuck in.

After a while Amber noticed Jace was underneath the desk being very quiet. She appeared underneath and found him chewing on something. She cautiously put her finger in his mouth and fished out his cud. Jace had snuck into a package of gum and had about six sticks of gum that he was chewing at one time in his mouth. The best thing about it is that the gum still had the wrappers on them. :)

Chillin' to Family Movies

I had a busy Sunday today. I came home this evening to find the family all cuddled up watching home videos.

I stopped and watched them for a while with them. I was amazed at how fast our kids are growing and how rapidly our family changes. I hope I can keep up with it all!

It's Official! We're a Suburban Family

Well, it is official! With our sixth child coming into our family we have decided -- albeit a little bit by force -- to upgrade to a larger vehicle since our minivan you can only seat seven people.

Amber and I have been searching through classified ads to find either a full sized Van or a suburban. A lots of people have been counseling us against a full sized Van just because a suburban is much more stylish. Our friends from Texas told us that if we purchased a full sized Van they would require us to paint some slogan on the side such as "Andersen Ministries". We really liked the roominess of a full sized Van, however, the vans did not seem to be as safe as a suburban. Also, the full sized vans had seats all the way back to the back doors so that there wasn't much space to haul luggage or groceries around.

After our trip to Idaho and Spokane during the Christmas holiday and seeing how our minivan slid around the roads and got stuck several times in the city, Amber and I were convinced that we wanted a four wheel drive suburban.

I had been monitoring suburban prices for a while and we found one that was a next went price and a color that Amber fell in love with quickly.



Our suburban is a shiny maroon color with black leather seats. It will be hot in the summer, but I guess that is what you have to live with when you purchase a vanity feature such as that. The suburban is one year old with less than 20,000 miles on it. This means that we still have a three year/36,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty. It also comes with a five year/100,000 mile drivetrain warranty. we are really excited about the warranty. We definitely prefer Honda and Toyota, but if we can't have one of those, we will take a suburban with its warranty still in tact.





The suburban comes with so many features that we had to read a getting started guide just to know how to use the lights, heat, radio, etc.! I am really excited about the remote start feature -- especially since the vehicle will have to stay outside because it will not fit in our garage. I can be getting ready in the house and start a vehicle outside so that it is warm by the time I get out there.



We are going to take the suburban on its maiden trip this Friday to Logan to see Adee and Adam. Hopefully we haven't purchased the lemon -- hopefully it gets us there without incident!

Aliece is a winner!

On Thursday evening we took our family to Centennial middle school in Provo to attend the Reflections awards ceremony for Provo city. The Reflections program is one that is sponsored by the PTA annually. Our kids have participated nearly every year that they have been in school. They submit arts, stories, creations that they have made that pertain to a certain theme for the year.

Our kids won certain awards earlier this year at the school level. However, Aliece is the first one in our family to win at a city level. Many of you may remember the photo that she submitted for the program earlier in the year of the rooster that she sought during a field trip.

It turns out that Aliece took 1st place for her age group for photography in all of Provo city. She is also the only student in her entire elementary school to take 1st Pl. for their age group in any category at the city level this year. That is quite an accomplishment!

We were all really excited for Aliece. She was a little disappointed that 1st place was a plaque rather than a trophy, but other than that her excitement was obviously evident!

Jace in the box

I was babysitting Aliece and Jace. Jace was playing with his farm set John gave him for Christmas. He took each thing out one by one until they were all out. Then he picked up the box and put it on his head. Jace was a "Jace in the box"!!!

Sub (Suberbin)

At the dinner table, Alayna comes up with the topic about how mom and dad bought a Sub.
We all disagreed. I was almost positive that she just saw them check it out, but Aliece and John needed prof. They went to the window and looked. They said it was there, but not in a happy mode. I went to check. I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw a red Sub parked in the driveway! I started to jump up and down 'cause I knew mom and dad had been looking for a long time. Yopee!!!!!!!!!!

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!