Fall at the Andersons

It has been a busy couple of months.  But I really don't want to forget all the fun things we have been doing.  So I'm going to write about them and post a bunch of pictures.  So here goes...

Dallin's soccer team took 2nd place in the Rangers Soccer League.  I was really proud of all his hard work and dedication.  The first two pictures show his team and Dallin holding the team trophy they won. 
Back in the spring we got some chicks from our friend.  The kids each had one that they kind of adopted and felt like it was their own chicken.  Well, we started to notice that one of our chickens seemed to be cock-a-doodle-doing.  At first we weren't really sure, because it didn't sound like a normal rooster crowing.  But after a while it became apparent that one of our chickens was really a rooster.  Our city ordinances prohibit having roosters inside the city limits, so this was a problem for us.  Not to mention all the noise he was making.  I told the kids what I suspected and Shelby said, "I hope it's not Crown! (her special chicken)"  I told her I thought it might be and she got teary eyed and sad.  I told her I would go out the next morning to see which one it was.  Well the next morning I heard the rooster crowing and was about to get out of bed when Shelby appeared by my bed and said, "I couldn't tell which one it was."  She had been looking out the window waiting for the sound.  We went out together and watched them and sure enough, it was her Crown who was the crow.  When we saw it cock-a-doodle-do Shelby burst into tears because she knew that we had to give her chicken, well rooster, away.  She had a rough couple of days but eventually came around to the idea.  We took Crown to a friends farm who has enough land to be able to keep the rooster.  So now we are down to 3 chickens.  We told Shelby we would get her a new baby chick in the spring.  She is really excited about that.

The last couple of pictures are of Shelby playing in her very first piano recital.  She played "Colors of the Wind," from Pocahontas.  She did a really good job and seemed to enjoy it.  She has a lot of confidence and doesn't seem to get nervous when performing or speaking in front of people. 

These group of pictures above are kind of a random assortment of pictures.  I did a fun project with the kids using crayons.  We had a bunch of crayons someone had given us so we glued them to some boards in whatever pattern the kids wanted to do.  Then we took some blow dryers and melted them.  The end result was pretty cool.  The kids each made their own and have them hanging in their rooms now.  It was a fun and easy project to do with them. 

Our chickens have been laying eggs for a couple of months now.  November 9th was the day we got the first egg.  Since that time they have been laying eggs every day.  We usually get either 2 or 3 eggs each day.  Good job chickens!

The last two pictures show Shelby and her entry for the Reflections contest.  The theme for this year was "Diversity means..." I gave her the idea of using our baby pumpkins and gourds to show diversity.  I helped her get the camera ready, but she put together the arrangement and took the picture all by herself while I was making dinner.  Her entry won 1st place in her division for her school.  They called it  an "Award of Excellence" and she got a nice trophy with her name engraved on it and a folder with photography helps.  Her entry will go on to compete in the District level now.  I was super proud of her for following through and completing the entry.  I was going to not do it because I had a lot going on, but she reminded me over and over until we got it finished.  Good job Shelby!

For Fall break this year we did a couple of fun activities.  I have always wanted to ride the ski lifts at Sundance, and we figured the fall was a perfect time to do it because we could enjoy the beautiful changing leaves at the same time.  It was a fun family "mini-vacation".   When we got home Cody said, "Mom, I really liked the sunny dance!  That was a lot of fun."  We also went to Thanksgiving point and dug for fossils at their "Trilobite quarry".  We spent several hours breaking rocks open trying to find some fossils.  We found quite a few of them and had a fun time doing it.  I only included one picture of them, but we probably found 30 or so.

These pictures are a bunch I took throughout the fall.  Cody and Darcy were my good helpers when it was harvest time.  They worked really well together and had a fun time doing it.  Of course, raking leaves is a favorite for the kids.  But the best part is jumping in the piles afterwards.  And we did our annual pumpkin sale on the corner.  All the kids came out and helped.  They sold a lot of the baby pumpkins and gourds that we grew in our garden.  They love doing it, which is one of the main reasons I plant the baby pumpkins each year. 

Halloween was super fun this year.  My mom sewed a beautiful Rapunzel dress for Darcy, which gave me the idea to be "Mother Gothel".   So I made a costume for myself.  Shelby was the Queen Mother from Rapunzel.  Cody was batman and Dallin was a cowboy.  We had a fun party at Papa and Gram's house and had fun trick or treating.  The weather was really mild for the first time in several years, so it was enjoyable to walk around the neighborhood.

November is birthday month at our house.  We started off with Cody's fifth birthday on November 6th.  He had a fun birthday party with his friends from Church.  He wanted a treasure hunt and pinata.  So that's what we did and he loved it!

Shelby's birthday was on November 17th and she turned 8 years old.   Since she loves crafting, we did a craft birthday party.  She invited several friends from school and we painted snowmen and did other little crafts.  It was a great party for her and her friends.  They really had fun making the crafts.

Dallin turned 10 on November 27th.  Once our kids get baptized we stop having friend parties and do something fun as a family instead.  So for Dallin's birthday he wanted to go to Jump-on-it.  Both Cody and Dallin wanted Peanut Butter Oreo Ice Cream cakes, that is their new favorite.  The peanut butter takes it to a whole new level of enjoyment...yum...

 On December 3rd, Shelby was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was such a special day.  She is a beautiful girl with such a sweet spirit.  She has a tender heart and seems to be able to feel the spirit.  She asked me to give a talk on Baptism and Papa Anderson to give a talk on the Holy Ghost.  She and her cousins sang a special musical number "When I am Baptized", which was beautiful.  James baptised and confirmed her and did a great job on both of them.   As I was giving the talk, I felt impressed by how much Heavenly Father loves her and how proud of her He is.  It was a special experience!  We invited everyone over to our house afterwards for food and visiting.  What a great day it was!

One of my favorite family traditions is making Gingerbread houses.  My mom is AMAZING!  She makes a house for every one of her grandchildren every year.  It is a lot of work!  The kids love making their houses and it is fun to see their creations.  I need to go over and take some pictures of the completed houses and village, but we are still waiting on some other cousins to get here and decorate their houses.  Thanks Mom for all your hard work and for carrying on this great tradition!

Catching up on September

 I wanted to catch up on some of the things our family has been doing the past couple of months.  I realized I haven't posted any pictures from Darcy's birthday.  She turned 3 years old on August 21st, which happened to be the day we were driving home from California.  I didn't think sitting in a car for 11 hours would be a very fun birthday memory, so we pretended her birthday was a few days later.  She was super excited about her presents and thought it was her birthday every day that week because we spread out the fun over a couple of days.  One day we opened presents, another day we went to Jump-on-it.  She loved it all.   Here are some pictures of her opening her presents and blowing out the candles on her cupcakes. 

Back to school was extra fun this year because all four kids got to participate.  Darcy was so excited to be able to go to school with Cody.  Almost every night she remembers to be thankful for going to school when she says her prayers.  Sometimes that is the only thing she talks about in her prayers, so we know she really loves it.  Here are some pictures of the first day of school. 

Dallin and Shelby's school has a really fun Fall Festival that we go to every year.  This year was a cowboy theme.  We decorated soda pop bottles and Shelby's was picked as one of the most creative ones. 

They also had Crazy Hair Day at school which prompted some really crazy hair for my kids.  Dallin decided to let his hair grow long until crazy hair day, then we cut half of his hair really short and left the rest long.  It looked really awesome.  I think Dallin's hair would be as curly as mine if he grew it out a little longer.  Too bad my girls didn't get his hair!    Shelby wanted to be a unicorn, so we gave her a horn and mane.  Cody and Darcy couldn't be left out so we sprayed their hair too.  It was fun to see the kids creativity. 

 The Fathers' and Sons' campout was in September this year.  James and the boys went camping and had a fun time.  The girls in the cul-de-sac decided to start a new tradition of a girls night sleep over party at Grandma's house.  We set up all the girls in the bonus room and they slept there together.  I slept in one of the extra bedrooms and Julie and Kelli slept at their own houses.  It was a fun night.  We had dinner together and watched movies.  Then we had french toast for breakfast the next day.  It was super fun and I'm excited to do it again next year!

Dallin finished his soccer season.  His team was undefeated for the entire season of play and made it to the playoffs.  They made it all the way to the championship game and then lost in overtime by one point.  It was a pretty intense game.  Dallin's coach told me that he thinks Dallin is the best right defender in the entire league.  So that was nice to hear.  It was a change for me to go from having him be on offense the last few years to defence this year.  But he really is a natural defender and does a great job at that position.  Very rarely does a player get past him to take a shot at the goal.  Here are some shots I took of him throughout the season. 

And that about covers September.    The October update will be coming soon! 

Summer Ends on a High Note

Summer is over and school is back, which means I have a little more time to myself lately.  Summer was great and I loved having my kids around all the time.  We did some really fun things together.  I didn't take time to blog about the things that we did, so I think I'll do a quick catch up post. 

In July we had a big family reunion with all the Anderson side of the family.  Everyone came to Utah and we spent a week together.  We did lots of fun activities together.  Here is the family picture we took of all of us together.   

One highlight of the reunion was our 4th of July party.  We had a water party with my Mom's big blowup slide.  We played lots of volleyball, which was awesome!  We also played some minute to win it games and had lots of yummy food. And to end off the celebration we had fun with the fireworks.  Here are a couple of pictures we took with with sparkers. 

We also went to a lake and had fun paddling around in some canoes that Papa and Gram brought.  We had a fun time at the zoo together.  It was really fun to see all the family members who live out of state.  I thought the reunion was a lot of fun. 

Another highlight of the summer was our family vacation to Los Angeles.  We drove there and stayed with my cousins Stacy and Pierce Thiot.  They live only about 5 miles from the beach, which was perfect! We spent most of our time at the beach, which was so much fun.   

The water was cool but comfortable and the sand was soft and nice.  We did lots of boogie boarding and digging in the sand.  The kids loved finding baby crabs in the sand.  Dallin was really good at boogie boarding, I was impressed!
 Stacy is a photographer - Red Poppy Photos by Stacy Thiot - so we had her take some family pictures for us while we were there.   We ended up with so many great shots.  I am going to print up the collage of pictures above to hang over my fireplace.  And this one of me and the girls to hang in their room. 

Another favorite of the kids was playing trains with Pierce. He has some really cool lego trains that are powered by remote control - a perfect combination for Dallin and Cody. But even Shelby and Darcy got into it and had a blast. 

 We also went to the Santa Monica Pier, which was really fun. They had rides and lots of carnival games. We played lots of games and had a great time. 

Soccer season is going full force for Dallin.  He's playing with the Utah Rangers this year, which has been really good for him.  It is a competitive soccer league with really good coaches.  He has loved it so far.   Shelby decided not to play soccer this year and take piano lessons and dancing lessons instead.  She has been taking piano lessons all summer long and is really improving.  The past couple of weeks have been really good for her and she is excited about how much better she is playing. 

And now the kids are back in school.   Dallin is in 4th grade and Shelby is in 2nd grade.  Cody and Darcy are both in preschool.  Cody goes M,W,F and Darcy goes M,W.  So for a couple of hours on Monday and Wednesday I am alone.  It's kind of strange, but also good. 

 

Girls Bedroom Makeover

I'm so excited to share my girls bedroom makeover.  I should have taken a before picture, but I didn't.  They used to share a queen bed, but Shelby is a very active sleeper.  She would roll around so much in her sleep that almost every night Darcy would wake up crying because Shelby was on top of her or had kicked her.  I knew we needed to do something when one night Darcy was fussing before bed and said, "I don't want to go to bed.  I don't like Shelby's legs!"

So I decided we needed to put them in separate beds so Darcy and I could get some sleep at night.  

The only problem was that their bedroom is pretty small and there wasn't really room in there for two beds and two dressers.  So I decided to build new beds that combined the bed and dresser into one.

I looked online and found some pictures of captain's beds that I liked and decided to give it a shot.  James has been so busy at work lately that I figured I would just do what I could on my own. So I designed the beds and figured out all the measurements and cuts I'd need to make.  James double checked my work and made a couple of improvements and we were ready to go.  This is the first project I have fully designed on my own, so I was a little nervous that it might not come together like I hoped, but luckily it turned out great. 

I had so much fun building them.  I couldn't cut the full sheets of plywood by myself so I had James help me with those cuts, but other than that, I did almost all of it on my own.  It took me about 2 weeks of full time work to finish the beds.   It was so satisfying to see them take shape and turn out well.   The beds have been done for a couple of weeks now, but I had to wait until we got the new bedspreads to post the pictures.   

The girls were excited to be on their beds when I was taking pictures of them. 

 I told James that I wanted to go over to Papa and Grams house to use their scroll saw to cut out names for the girls.   Instead James came home with a scroll saw of our own... He couldn't pass up the chance to get a new tool.  So with our scroll saw I cut out these names for the girls.  They picked the color to paint them. 

  Here is a closer shot of the bookshelf headboard.  And below you can see the little flower table I made with the scraps that were leftover from the beds.  I didn't want all the wood to go to waste and clutter  up our garage. 

 The top of the table is shaped and painted like a flower

 I also built the little step stools out of the scraps I had leftover.  The beds ended up being so tall that I knew Darcy wouldn't be able to get in and out of them without something to step on.  She loves the little stairs as you can see.

 I think one of the favorite features for the kids is the fort I build along the back side of the bed.  The drawers only take up half of the bed, so I made doors so the kids could go under their beds or store things under them.  They play under there all the time with their little flashlights. 

 Here's a shot of Darcy standing next to the beds...you can see they are as tall as she is.  We put a swimming noodle under the sheets by the edge of the bed to help keep her from falling out of the bed.  So far it has worked really well. 

 It was a super fun project to design and build.  The girls love their new beds and have had so much fun putting things in their bookshelves and playing in their forts.  

Making Progress

I'm so excited to report that we are making progress on our basement!  Yesterday we had a framing party and Chris, Joe, Matt, Jared, and Papa show up to help us.  We worked for several hours together and had a great time.  This was my first experience framing, so it was fun for me to try something new.   Thankfully Chris is super experienced and told me exactly what to do.  Chris and I worked on laying out the chalk lines for the walls around the perimeter of the basement and then worked on building the furdowns around the AC/Heat Ducts.  Here's the furdown that I helped build.    

The rest of the guys were building the perimeter walls.  We still have a lot of work to do, but it is fun to be making progress on it. 

I thought I'd add some pictures from our fishing trip we did a couple of weeks ago. We went to a pond in Pleasant Grove and had a fun time catching lots of fish. Each of the kids caught at least a couple of them.  I thought it was cute when Darcy sat down next to Dallin while he was fishing.

Here is Dallin with a fish on.

And here is one of the fish we caught.  I know they are tiny fish, but they are still fun to catch.

 

Four little chickies...

We had our first casualty this week.  Our little black chickens fell prey to a neighborhood dog.    Rest in peace Thunderbolt. :( 

Five little chickies...

That's right, we have chicks at our house!  James' good friend Chris Thomsen ended up with a double shipment of chicks and needed to get rid of some of them.  So we took five of them off his hands.  We have had such a fun time playing with these little chicks.  I think we'll build a chicken coup in our back yard and harvest our own eggs.  It can be a job for the kids to learn responsibility, and maybe even earn a little money selling the eggs around the neighborhood.  Here are some pictures of the kids playing with the chicks.