Another day at the fair

This past weekend we were supposed to go to Provo to visit old friends.  However, several of the kids were still sporting Pink Eye  They were all on medicine, but we didn't want to make people feel uncomfortable with us staying with them, so we decided to stay home.

Since we were going to be home, we decided to go to the fair with the whole family.  I had gone to the fair the previous day with Jace, but we decided to go again.

We had a great time there looking at the animals, interacting with them, as well as checking out all of the fun entertainment and food.

Alayna spent some of her hard earned money to get her face painted.  She was really excited about it, and it looked great.

One of the big activities for the kids was the science exhibit.  There were lots of puzzles and experiments to play with.  The kids loved that section.

While we were there we ran in into Jake & Shantell and their family, Jen & Dave and their family, as well as Janae.  It was a lot of fun.  We were there for a good four or five hours.

Amber made a big purchase at the fair as well.  She has been wanting vinyl decals for the back of the suburban for a long time.  We found a place at the fair that let you design your own decals.  We let each of the kids choose their own icon for the banner.  It was a fun process and it looks great.

First Triathlon

On Saturday, September 10, there was a Kid's triathlon at the golf course in Shelley. John has really enjoyed long distance running, and he did well on the swim test at Scout camp this summer, so Amber talked to him and asked if he wanted to be in it. He was pretty excited, so we signed him up the next morning.

He didn't get to train for it at all since he had about 12 hours advance notice, but he did a really good job.

The triathlon consisted of: 100 meter swim, 3 mile bike ride, and 1.5 mile run.



His chain came off twice on his bike right at the beginning which put him back a ways, but he persevered and stuck with the race, doing a very good job.



He was in the same bracket with one of his best friends, Emily Rickabaugh...they both finished about the same time.

It was a very positive experience...we're really glad that he decided to do the race.

Four Wheeler

While I was at scout camp this week with John I have asked Amber to
check out a four wheeler off of craigslist. On Monday, Amber and her dad
visited the people that were selling the four wheeler. They took it for
a spin and liked it enough to buy it.

When I got back from scout camp, Amber and I took the cargo trailer over
and picked up the four wheeler. It is just over 10 years old but is in
pretty good condition for its age. It does have a few quirks, but it
seems to run pretty well.

It came with an electric winch as well as a good snow blade.

When we were picking up the four wheeler I told the guy that I had
purchased a snow thrower last winter and found out that my property was
just too big for it. If he was interested he could stop by our house and
check it out. Last night, he swung by our house and looked at it. He
liked it and bought it from us. It turned to be a pretty nice arrangement!

Where there's Smoke, there's Fire

Today, I had to get the oil changed on the pickup so I took my laptop to Big-O and did my work while they serviced the truck. While I was gone, Amber was home with all of the kids except for Aylee who is at Girl's Camp.

While Amber was taking a shower, she thought she smelled smoke, but kept on taking her shower. She could tell that the smoke was outside and a ways away, so she didn't think anything of it. When she got out of the shower and downstairs to check on the kids, she found John, Aliece, and Alayna all out sitting in the driveway out by the road with their 72 hour kit backpacks. They smelled the smoke and had grabbed their emergency gear and waited outside all prepared. Aliece even had her blanket and favorite stuffed animal with her just so nothing happened to them.

We both had a good laugh about it and were proud of their efforts. The only downside: while they had their precious belongings and were safe, they had let Avary and Jace stay in the house -- Avary in her bed and Jace playing with his toys. At least the stuffed animals will be safe :-)

Cowboy Jace

Ever since we moved to Idaho, Jace has had this thing about Cowboys. He often insists that we call him "Cowboy Jace" instead of just Jace. Amber was telling a friend today that Jace doesn't no how to run normally, he trots all of the time on his imaginary horse any time he wants to get somewhere fast.

Well, I just got home from Scouts tonight and was trying to find Amber. Jace has been having a hard time falling asleep lately with the sun being up so late in the evening, so I guessed that she might be in his room helping him fall asleep. Sure enough, as I peeked through the crack in the doorway, I saw Amber sitting next to Jace on his bed in the dark bedroom. Amber had Jace's head on her lap and she was lightly brushing his face and tracing the features of his face with nothing other than his silver toy six-shooter pistol.

Woah Tex...this kid has it bad!

Indiana Jones

Amber heard the Indiana Jones theme song coming from our closet. She walked in there to find Jace humming the song, flipping his rope whip, all while dangling down in our laundry chute.

He loves to play Indiana Jones!

Dad Singing Eggbert the Easter Egg

We had a great time this past Saturday with the family at our house for the Easter party.  It was especially fun to see Joe.  The kids loved having Lucy there as well.

I managed to catch a recording of Dad singing "Eggbert the Easter Egg" for all of the gang.  You can listen to it here:

http://www.callfamilyhistory.com/manual-uploads/joann/DadSingingEggbertTheEasterEgg.mp3

Potty training tool

As many of you know our son Jace has been having a hard time learning how to go poop in the toilet. He's getting old enough that All of his cousins that are his age are potty trained. He is lagging behind. I have tried lately to get him to sit on the toilet for an extended period of time by setting up a table with my iPad on it showing a movie of one of his favorite cartoons. We'll have to see if this works!

Arbor

The last couple of weeks I have been working on an Arbor for a wisteria vine on the side of my house. I thought I would send a couple of pictures so you could see the progress.

I planted that wisteria vine last year becuase I had visions of an arbor at the spot so the vine is well established by now and should start climbing the arbor posts.

Stool Sample

Tonight, Amber found some plans on how to make a long bench. She decided that the bench, if shortened would make a good stool. When I got done working at 5pm, I found her chopping up some spare wood scraps. By 7:30, she had her first prototype finished. It is sturdy and looks pretty good. We're going to paint it and then mass produce them to go throughout the house!

True Colors

Last night, one of tonight's appointments fell through so I decided to go on a date with Amber instead. As we were going out the door, Alayna grabbed onto me and pleaded that I would stay home with her instead. I was touched by her sincere desire to have some quality time with her dad. However, I was immovable on the matter. When she realized that I was indeed leaving, her true intentions came out with her question...

"Well, Dad, can you just leave your iPhone here then?"

So much for wanting Dad to stay home for some quality 1:1 time :)

Jace's new eating habit

Jace was having a hard time eating his lunch today. He then offered amber a solution that would help him eat. Surprisingly it did the trick!

2010-2011 Weight Competition Results

I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone that participated in the 2010-2011 Holiday Version of Leading Losers. It looks like over half of us were able to shed our holiday pounds...so congratulations. Everyone else was close to being back at their pre-holiday weight!

Those that lost weight or broke even:
John, Jen, Amber, & Jake

It was a fun go around, and I appreciate everyone's well wishes for me taking the entire pot of $168.00 (that's a few visits to chuck-a-rama!). As you can see by my picture, I still have more to lose, so we'll have to circle our wagons and plan our next weight challenge sometime!!

Aliece hits the news....

I was reading the Shelly Pioneer (a weekly newspaper for the Shelley area) and found that Aliece was mentioned in the paper. She recently won a story telling competition for her classroom. She then competed in the school and did very well.

I have scanned in the newspaper article about the occasion.

We were really proud of Aliece for going out of her comfort zone and doing such an amazing performance.

Splits

I don't know where Jace got the idea, but today at lunch he thought it would be fun to do the splits on top of the kitchen table. He did a pretty good job!

Flooring has arrived

We just got our hardwood flooring in yesterday. I had to take the trailer to the lumber store to pick it up. It weighed about 1.5 tons. It really maxed out my trailer's towing capacity. I was kind of worried, but we took it slow and made it home without any incident. When we got home, we had some neighbor kids come over and Haul the wood into the house. It is now sitting in boxes in the kitchen area so that it can adjust to the climate in our house. Within about a week or two the floor will be installed. It will be so nice to have a real floor again! The kids keep tripping into the subfloor and getting close snagged on pieces of wood. Before the floor gets in, we will need to replace our exterior doors. After the floor is complete, we just do some repair work on the cabinets and build an island. It will be nice when this project is done!

A sticky situation

This week we were at the high school switching buses like always when I walked passed John's stop and saw him on a pole. I told him to get away thinking that he would get his tongue stuck, but it was too late. He had already frozen his tongue there. Fortunately, one of his good friends was there and got a guard. While they ran to get water, I kept pushing his head forward so that he wouldn't cause any more damage. Luckily, he only hurt the bottom of his tongue! Well, Alayna is begging me to get off, so see you! Love A's

Remodel Project

Here are some pictures of the remodel of my breezeway. It is still a work in process but I finished putting the primer on the ceiling today. Next week I hope to put the paint on the ceiling.

Before:After:

Mommy Did It

This morning, mom turned the on monitor on the computer for Avary. For the Next while, Avary sat there watching small Sesame Street clips. When I walked in a little later, I noticed she was pressing the monitor button. I told her that wouldn't work, then she said: "Mommy did it." Who knows what she will pick up next!

Love you! A's

My kind of shoes

There was a picture I saw on Google Reader that showed the coolest high heels ever. They were black and totally covered with star wars stuff. Now those are shoes I wouldn't mind wearing!

Love you all!
A's

P.S. To those who didn't know, I am getting braces this month.

Suggested Resolutions

While sitting around the dinner table tonight, our conversation moved toward new year's resolutions. Everyone started suggesting resolutions for each other. Suggestions for Avary and Jace were to be potty trained. Alayna & Aliece, were suggested that they should learn to tie their shoes. John Jr was told that he should work on keeping his room clean. Aylee was challenged to show confidence when she talks to other people.

The kids caught on to this along the way and were firing these suggestions off right and left. Then they directed their attention to their parents. Alayna told Amber that her resolution should be to prepare dinner at the right time (tonight's dinner ended up taking place after 7pm).

Then John looked at me and said, "I know Dad's resolution!" The table went quiet momentarily as I cringed waiting to hear the verdict. Here it came, "Dad, you should just keep up the good work."

I looked at Amber a little haughtily and smiled proud.

John will be getting a $20.00 bill under his pillow tonight. :-)

A 3 year old dissappointment

Apparently, according to Aliece & Alayna, Jace is disappointed in me as a Dad since I got mad at him tonight when I caught him out of bed way past bed time.

Luckily for me, Alayna tried to cheer the three year old up and Aliece tried to explain to him how why grown ups do the things they do.

Someone needs a psychiatrist in this house!

Newest Computer User

Due to increased computer activity by our youngest boy, Amber was driven to create Jace his first ever computer account on the kids' PC at our house.

Lately Jace has really gotten into the activities on PBS. He can pretty much navigate himself around the computer alone.

Maybe we'll have to buy the kid a laptop for Christmas. :)

A Broken Nose

The other day we had a guy over to our house to do some maintenance work
on our fireplace. I was sitting in the room with the service man to
watch how he was doing everything. While we were there, Jace came up to
me excitedly and said, with a proud look on his face, "Dad, look at this!"

I looked down at him and he was sticking his finger in his nose and
then putting it into his mouth. Then he got a perplexed look on his
face. He then tried it again. The finger went into the nose, but came
out clean and then went into his mouth.

He stuck his finger into his nose one last time, and it came out clean.
He stuck it into his mouth and then said in a frustrated tone, "Dad,
it's broken!"

I guess he'll have to wait until his nostrils fill up with more of those
juicy little snacks.

No Electricity

A month ago, Aliece brought home this essay that she wrote at school. I thought it was really cute, so I thought I would post it to the blog. In case it is hard to read on the scanned image that I am including, I will also type her essay here:

Title: What I would do if there was no electricity
By: Aliece

What I would do if there was no electricity. I would go outside and play. I would even light a lamp with fire and have my family stay behind me. I could even walk and look behind me to see if my whole family was there. I would feel brave and we would even have our emergency backpacks. It would keep us safe and happy.

I would feel like a Hero. I might would be in the newspaper. It would be great. But we love electricity!

The End.

P.S. But we wouldn't marry electricity. And it is fun to have electricity.

By Aliece.

Dave can fix anything!

I went downstairs and hear Jace getting upset in the room with our computer. I asked him why is was mad and it was because he was trying to watch a disney video on the internet but it was choppy due to slow internet speeds.

I worked with it a bit to try to speed things up, but to no avail.

Aliece, who was standing behind me offering encouraging advice, said, "Maybe we should call Dave."

I replied, "Oh, you think Dave can fix this?".

She responded so absolutely, "Oh yes, Dave can fix ANYTHING!"

So, Dave, when you get a minute, can you come over to our house and give us faster internet speeds??

The kind gesture of a simple card

After my business trip from Denver, I came home last night to find a nice little card on my pillow from Alayna. Amber explained to me that Alayna had made these cards for everyone as a special invitation or message. She explained that Alayna had put these on everyone's pillow.

I guess last night when Jace went to bed he found the card from Alayna. Amber said that he was so proud of that card. He kept pretending to read it over and over again, saying Alayna's name randomly in his "reading". He kept the card next to him all night and kept picking it up and setting it down over and over again before sleep overcame him.

This morning I found Jace toting around his little card from Alayna. I grabbed a photo of him eating his breakfast with the card right next to him. (Yeah, he is trying to smile in this picture - don't you love it when little kids realize that their is a smile pose and it takes them a year or so to get it down?)

Thanks for your thoughtful act, Alayna, it really made a huge difference to Jace!

Naughty List

I am working here in my home office and I overheard John Jr sing, to the tune of a Polar Express song, "And Santa falls off his sleigh..."

Then I heard Alayna chastising him, " Johnny, that is not nice. What if you end up on Santa's 'Naughty List!'"

I guess that should straighten him out. :-)

First Play on our Home Theater Stage

As part of our basement remodel, Amber and I decided to make a stage where the TV goes so that our home theater room would be both a movie theater room along with a drama room. The kids love to make movies and plays, so we thought this would go over well.

Yesterday, after church, the kids made up a play about the Biblical story of Esther. They came up with it quickly and did a fun presentation. It was humorous to see Jace in his various costumes getting into the play. Avary even hopped off Amber's lap to make a few appearances in the production.

If you have 10 minutes to kill, you can view it here:

Craft fun for thanksgiving

One of the many activities for our Andersen family Thanksgiving get together included a craft activity for the kids. Janae rounded up the kids for this activity. They had fun painting clear plastic cups brown and then cutting out their hand shapes to make turkey feathers.

The women folk have busy busy on other crafts as well as the guys have gotten their fill of football and James Bond.

Double take

While I was working this morning Amber hung up our Christmas stockings on the mantle. As I walked into the room I did a double take as I saw the number of stockings. I thought Amber had gone crazy hanging a gazillion stockings for fun.

As I counted the hoard of multiple-colored socks I realized that there was just enough for each one of us.

Man, when did my little family get to be so big?

Just so that I wont forget it

The other day, my watch died on me. I thought it would be fun to take it apart, so I did. After I was done, I took a piece of paper and wrote my locker combination on it and stuck it in my watch, so that I could see it. Now I am pretty sure I won't forget it(not that I have yet)!

Love ya!
A's

The Monster

Yesterday I realized that I have procrastinated the day of my repentance. We had nearly a three foot drift in our driveway, and I still didn't have a good snow removal solution for the house. I bundled up at lunch time and headed out to some stores to seek out the perfect, low-cost, snowblower.

As soon as I reached the first store, I found out that finding a snow blower was going to be as easy as grabbing a $100 ipad on a black-friday sale. People were lined up at the snow blower isle, each clamoring for the blower of their choice among a very limited stock. I found one that I liked, but wanted to check out Sam's club first to see if they had a better deal. I ran over to Sams to find a snow blower that was a beast. It was huge and dwarfed any of the others that I had been looking at. The price was good, but it was still 200 dollars more than the unit I liked best at the Home Depot.

I ran back to the Home Depot to grab smaller and cheaper unit, only to find that they were all sold out. There was a much smaller and cheaper one left, and I was just about decided to buy it. The wheels on the thing were pretty small though, and I started to think about the drifts in my yard. I decided to go with the Sam's Club behemoth version instead.

I spent the extra money. It took four guys to get the box into my Suburban. As I drove home, I was sick. I wondered if I really needed a blower that was that big.

However, after I got it assembled and started blowing snow last night, I realized that this thing was probably the smallest I should ever go on a blower for our place. It took me 90 minutes to do our driveway and barn area. When I was hitting the biggest drifts I was grateful for the size of the blower. I realized that if I had let it go one more day, even this snow blower would have had a hard time getting us out of the house.

Oh, Duuuuh

Today was our high council assignment day in which the assigned High Councilor from the stake made a visit to our ward and gave an assigned talk. Somewhere during his talk he was telling a story from the book of mormon of a very wicked man who hated the Nephites and caused a lot of contention between them and the Lamanites. During his talk, he forgot the name of that particular Book of Mormon villan.

In his exasperation, he said, "well, I can't quite remember the name, but it sounds like the city of Zarahemla". At that point, Johnathan, who was sitting next to Amber, exhaled in almost of sound of resigned disgust, wispered, "Zarahemna!"

Amber and I did our best not to start laughing right there in the middle of the talk. Good job on your Book of Mormon reading, Johnny!

Welcome to The Netherlands

This week I am in the Netherlands for work. I flew out on Friday and got Amsterdam on Saturday afternoon. They are 9 hours ahead of us in California so adjusting to the schedule was very difficult the first day. After one day in Amsterdam it was off to Tilburg which is a city of about 250,000 about 1.5 hours from Amsterdam.
We finished things up on Tuesday night and then drove back to Amsterdam last night. This morning I flew to London and am enjoying my first day in London before heading off to Paris tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing Paris before heading back to Amsterdam to fly back to California.

The two that made it all happen!

I just wanted to take a minute and wish Mom and Dad a very Happy Anniversary today! I have always loved this picture from one of our camping trips to Twin Lakes. I carried it with me in my scriptures throughout my mission to Brazil. I would always look at it to feel a touch of home.

Hope you both have a very nice day today. You deserve it. Thanks for being the parents and grand parents you are. We all love you and appreciate all the attention and love you give to us.

Beehive 2nd Counceler

Hey guys! I want to do more blogging, so I figured this is the perfect chance! On Sunday afternoon, One of the bishopbric members interviewed me and asked if I would be the Beehive 2nd counceler! Of course I said Yes.

Pepsi

As most of you know, we have a number of horses staying in our corrals right now. Avary is enthralled my the horses. The other day I took Avary over to the corral to get a hands on experience with the horses. The other kids were with us and the horse closest to us is named "Pepsi". All the kids called for "Pepsi" to come over so that they could pet her. With all of the kids shouting the horse's name, Avary decided that the word for "horse" is "Pepsi". Now, when she sees the horses in the corral, or in a book, she exclaims, "Pepsi!"

Independence

Lately when we get out of the car, the moment someone u buckles Avary and sets her on the ground, she takes off walking as fast as she can on her own. We have to chase her down, or at least keep an eye on her. She loves the outdoors and could spend all day running away from home if we would let her!

In Vitro Update

Hi everyone! Greetings from Utah!

Jake and I want to thank everyone for praying and fasting for us. We feel so loved and supported. We are hopeful everything will work out and trust in our Heavenly Father.

So far things are going good. We had 5 eggs retrieved on Thursday and 4 eggs successfully fertilized. So we are hoping to have 2 eggs to transfer. The longer the embryo's have to grow outside the uterus the more likely they will successfully implant when they are transfered. We have a tentative transfer date for Sunday but are hoping to transfer the embryo's on Tuesday, day 5.

Thank you for all of your support and love.

We love you guys!

Jake & Shantell

2010-2011 LeadingLosers.net Challenge

Hello family and friends!

My gut is getting a little bigger and I need increased motivation to drop some pounds!  In order to do so, I have created a weight loss competition and I would like to invite you to join.

If you have a big desire to shed some pounds between TODAY and February 2011, then join me in the LeadingLosers.net challenge.  Everyone donates $25.00 to the weight loss pot.  Once you reach 10 pounds lost, or 5% weight loss, you start gaining points fast!  EVERYONE has the chance to win some money!

I have created a new website to show you how you are doing versus everyone else.  It also shows you how much money you are currently set to receive.  The website for seeing this status is called:  http://www.LeadingLosers.net.

You will need to join a third-party website to enter your weight (and exercise minutes if you care to).  The website is http://www.workoutzone.net.  As you update your stats each day your status will immediately be reflected on the http://www.LeadingLosers.net website.

Send this to whomever you would like.  The more the merrier ... not to mention, the more people, the bigger the pot!

Here is what you have to do to get involved:

1. If you haven't already, sign up for an account at http://www.workoutzone.net.
2. Become part of the LeadingLosers.net workout group by sending John Andersen your username for workoutzone.net. You can contact John at:  http://www.john-james-andersen.com/contact-john
3. Make a $25.00 contribution to the pot. You should pay at:  https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JEBRWHP4PFNP8
4. Enter your current weight at Workout Zone AT LEAST ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS between now and February 1, 2011.
5. Earn Points -- they determine what portion of the pot is yours!
• Once your weight is 10 pounds under your starting weight, you get 1 point for every pound lost.
• Once your weight is 5% under your starting weight, you ALSO get 2 points for every percent of weight loss.

Let's have a lot of fun with this!

John Andersen

http://www.john-james-andersen.com

BSA Adventure

At the Eastern Idaho State Fair, our kids had a fun time playing at the various stations at the Boy Scouts of America booth. One of the activities was to stand in front of a green screen and have your picture taken. They would then superimpose your picture on an adventure shot.

John did a shot of himself rock climbing and we did a family picture that we had put onto a raft.

We just got the pictures today and thought they turned out great!

Radio Frequency Procedure

Yesterday I had my Radio Frequency Procedure. I appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers this week as I have had the tests and then had the procedure performed. I am hoping and praying that this will provide me with significant relief for a good amount of time.

After the initial tests on Monday, I stayed the night with our friends, the Kosmicki's there in Provo. I then worked most of the morning and then headed to my procedure at the pain clinic. Just as my appointment was scheduled to being, Ken Kosmicki texted me and asked me if I needed a blessing. I responded that I wish I would have thought about it that morning, or even in the prior evening. I thanked him and told him I would be ok. He texted me back and said that he just happened to be passing by the clinic as he was heading to drop stuff off at his company's office. We agreed to quickly meet up.

Ken parked his big Heating and Air Conditioning service van in the parking lot. He opened the side doors and I sat on the steps leading into the side of his van. He gave me a nice little blessing right there in the parking lot. I was grateful that he was willing to do that kind gesture for me. We said our goodbyes and Ken headed back off to work again.

I went back in and waiting for my procedure. They were running a couple of hours behind. I had wanted to drive back to Idaho that night so I told them not to order their narcotics for the procedure. I wanted to be alert enough to drive afterward. So, to prepare myself for not having the stronger medicine, I took some percocet an hour before my scheduled time. Due to them running behind I was worried that my percocet would wear off before the procedure ever took place. Luckily it ended up not being too painful and I sailed through it without screaming too much. :-).

After several insertions of the needle, they finally got it in a very good position. They were able to measure the signals coming from the nerve and they said that was about the closest they have been able to get to a nerve before (which is a very good thing). They performed the surgery which, in effect, killed that particular nerve's pain receptors. They told me that I may have some pain over the next week or two, so I can't really gauge the success of the operation until after about a month.

They gave me a little xray photo of a step in the procedure. It shows the needle and the wire coming into the need. I thought I would post it with this entry :-).

Today I have had a lot of pain relief. There is still some pain, but it is a lot better than before. I still have a lot of drugs in my back, so it is hard to tell what is what when it comes to what is relieving the pain.

I'll keep you all in touch to let you know how it goes after about a month's time.

The passing of a friend

Amber and I have a friend who has, for many years, had the dream of climbing Mt. Everest. She has spent the past few years spending a lot of time outdoors with outdoor sports such as hiking, biking, etc. This year, she finally got her chance to head up to Everest.

She has sent a couple of emails in the past few days logging her journey and adventure.

Her email yesterday said that they were still at an airport waiting for their Nepal flight that had been delayed because of a storm. This morning I was notified by a friend in Provo that Leuzi Cardoso's plane had crashed in Nepal and that she, along with all 14 passengers did not survive.

This is a terrible tragedy for the family. Leuzi has a son serving a mission in the Morristown, NJ mission. Her husband and I have sat next to each other on the High Council in our Provo stake for several years. We have been friends for about 10 years. She was also Jace's nursery teacher while we were still in Provo.

Amber and I saw Leuzi as she was purchasing a camera for her Mt. Everest climb. She was really excited about the great adventure that awaited her. It is hard to fathom that this tragic accident has occurred. She will definitely be missed by our family.

Our future Realtor

We just had the people come over to see our house that are going to be buying it.  The wife has never been to the house — her husband had picked it out for the family when he was down here several weeks ago.

The visit went fine and the family is just sweet and nice.  During their tour of the house, Aliece had put together a plate of cookies and presented them to our buyers.  They politely thanked her and each took one.

After the people left, Amber was confused because she didn't let Aliece bake any cookies this morning and she was wondering where the cookies came from.

After Amber's inquiry, Aliece told her that she had pulled two cookies out of the pantry (who knows how old they were — weeks?) and then didn't have enough so she took some cookie dough from the fridge and formed it to make it look like a baked cookie.

So, to our chagrin, our "buyers" just ate two old, stale cookies and one lump of raw cookie dough!!

Hopefully the sale still goes through!

Aylee's first temple experience

Amber and I took Aylee to the Provo temple early this morning so that
she could do some Baptisms for the Dead. We had a really neat time in
the temple together. They let me do the baptisms and confirmations for
Aylee. It was a sweet experience.

There are few feelings sweeter than having one of your children in the
temple with you. We're proud of Aylee and hope one day to have all of
our kids in the temple together.

Aylee is Twelve!!

I thought the day that one of my kids would end up in the Mutual program of the church would be many years away. How did it sneak up on me so quickly?

Our little girl is now a Young Woman!

Aylee kicked the day off by going to see the Bishop for a Temple Recommend. Amber and I will be taking her to do baptisms for the dead early tomorrow morning. Then on Tuesday, she heads off to Young Women's Camp. Busy week!

We made a little video for Aylee today: Happy Birthday Aylee

new apostle song

This song welcomes elder andersen. to see movie, type in this link.


http://mormonsoprano.com/2009/04/08/lds-apostle-song-welcomes-andersen/

Love A's

A Mouse in the House!

Jake’s wish for Kitty was to give her a mouse to play with. He was so excited when we moved into Estep’s because living in the country usually means mice. Not so in the sturdy built Estep house–to Jake’s disappointment. Then he started asking if we could just buy a mouse that she could play with. Ew! AS IF! The other day, Jake’s dream came true. He spotted a mouse in the house. He yelled for me to get Kitty. I brought Kitty and placed her directly in front of the mouse. Luckily this mouse was a little baby mouse and not very experienced in the way of predators. Kitty had a chance. And she blew it. Seriously, I always knew she would die if she got lost outside. She has absolutely no survival skills. She was interested in the mouse enough to follow it around the house. But her tracking skills were sadly lacking. The mouse was not even trying to avoid her and yet it managed to evade her. I, of course, was very good at tracking that little rodent as I did not want it roaming freely in the house. This mouse was actually quite a good little mouse. It walked up to the front door which I had open and walked right out the door all by itself. We got rid of the mouse! Without any mouse traps and with no thanks to Kitty!

A Ghost is Loose

Jace is into ghosts right now - big time. The other day he lost his
Yankee hat. We searched everywhere. Finally, we gave up. Any time we
would put on our Yankee hats, we would ask Jace, "Where is your hat?"
His response lately has been, "Ghost take it".

We have since found his hat, but that still has not deterred him and his
Ghost convictions. When a toy goes missing, etc, when I ask him where
it is he still responds, "Ghost take it."

Archery

A while ago, mom signed us up for an archery class. We would shoot arrows for an hour and on the last two or three days, the teacher put up a yellow dot, and if we shot it, he would buy us a soda. Nobody got the soda. It would kind of get boring after shooting for 30 minuets. But we did learn to shoot a bow and arrow!

Love you guys!
A's

Piano Recital for Aliece

Yesterday evening we visited a neighbor's home to watch Aliece perform
in her first piano recital. She was a little bit nervous, but she
performed like a pro! It is fun seeing our kids show their talent on
the piano. I hope they can all stick with it so that they can use the
piano in their lives for both fun and service.

Little Red Riding Hood - A Reading

During the last week of school Aliece's class did a reader's theater of
an improvised story of "Little Red Riding Hood". This is a picture of
Aliece in her costume as the Mother of little Red and next to her is our
neighbor, Jim Tucker as a narrator.

Aliece is always fun to watch in reader's theater performances. She
always reads clearly and fluently. She also knows how to play her part!

John Earns his Bear Award

This past Tuesday, Johnny was honored in the monthly Pack Meeting for
having earned his "Bear Award." He is now ready to move into Webelo's
scouts (his last year of Cub Scouts) at the turn of his birthday.

John is now madly earning a bunch of gold and silver arrow points before
his birthday.

Woohoo John!

Alayna's Last Days as a Kindergartner

Alayna celebrated her last days as a kindergartner at the school last
week by enjoying a field day that mostly consisted of chalk art and
Popsicles! She has had a very enjoyable year with her first school
teacher, Mrs. Holyoak. Alayne is excited to be moving on into full-time
school in the fall when she starts the first grade!

Aylee Graduates from Elementary School

Last week, Aylee received a number of honors, awards, and even a graduation from Lakeview Elementary school.

It is hard to believe that our oldest girl will be moving into middle school/Jr. High this fall!

Aylee had an amazing 6th grade year. She was honored with a number of awards during both the graduation ceremony last wednesday and an awards ceremony the following friday.

During her graduation she was honored as one of six individuals of the 100 graduating, to get the top academic honor at the school, the Presidential Academic Gold Seal award.

Mom, Jen, Chloe, and Karly came down and stayed for the week to celebrate the occasion with us.


On Friday, there was a special recognition and awards assembly at the school. Aylee received another set of important honors there. At the assembly, she received the National Fitness Award and Fantastic Attendence.

The most honorable award of them was presented on behalf of the Kiwanis Club of Provo. It was the "Hope of America" award. This award was given based on citizenship, academics, and service. We were really proud of her with this award.



We were pretty amazed with Aylee's accomplishments this year. We are excited to see how well rounded Aylee has become with her skills and interests.

Go Aylee!

Our little "fairy"

When I first saw Jace when amber took this picture I thought he got beat
up by one of the kids. It turns out, our little two year old man has
gotten into a bad habit of sneaking into Aliece's toy makeup kit to doll
himself up.

Should I be worried?

Popularity

This year has been an interesting one for our kids. With Aylee just
finishing up the sixth grade, she has come to notice the concept of
popularity. Of course, when the oldest one experiences these things,
the younger ones get exposed to the conversations as well.

A lot of the girls that are popular in school tend to be squeely,
obnoxious, and rude. We have had discussions with Aylee about
popularity and how Amber and I never were in the "popular" crowd, nor
did we ever try to be. It just wasn't us.

Well, the other day, Alayna was whiny and squeely about everything -
such as, "Oooooh...don't touch me!!!", and "That is mine, give it back
now!!" She was using a tired, whiney, high pitched voice. After one of
her bouts of sqeeling, Amber and I overheard Aliece exclaim, "Alayna,
you are starting to sound popular!"

I think Aliece has it figured out!