Incentive

Aaron was trying to motivate John to eat his chili dinner.

Aaron: John you need to at least eat the beans. John, do you want to toot? Beans help you toot!

John wasn't sold.

Beans and Bishopric

Your dad was called as the second counselor in the bishopric this weekend and set apart as a High Priest. He has been daunted by the responsibility of it all. On Sunday night we talked about the ways that we have seen the Lord prepare us in the last little bit for our family to be able to serve in this way.

One way is dried beans. For a while now I have had the thought that I need something like pea gravel to bring to church for John to "dig" with using his little yellow construction trucks during sacrament meeting. He likes to pull out the almonds and pecans and dig with those but those make a mess. A couple of Sundays ago I decided to look in the pantry to see if I had anything that would work like pea gravel (I didn't have time to find and wash rocks before church). Lentils... too small. Rice... still too small. Dried beans! So I put some in a bag and brought them to church. John was elated when he saw what he could do!! He was relatively quiet and beyond happy the entire sacrament meeting. He still let out some truck engine noises and some beeps to indicate the truck was backing up. I was so proud of myself! After church he ran up to me wanting to dig with beans. I told him he could only do it during sacrament meeting. He wanted those beans so bad that he asked to just hold the bag of beans.

This week as soon as we got to church (and we were early), John leaped for the diaper bag looking for the beans. I told him we needed to go for a walk to get wiggles out before church. He was not happy about it! He had to be carried out of the chapel to get him to go on a walk. Again, when it was time to play with beans the kid was so happy and quiet!

After Aaron's call to the bishopric, it dawned on me that the beans idea was in fact divine inspiration. I now had a way to help John be reverent during church now that Aaron would be sitting on the stand. I felt foolish for assuming that it was my great idea. I was humbled that Heavenly Father was blessing me with help for the seemingly little things. Wrestling John during sacrament meeting can be exhausting, so this was really a big blessing. I feel Heavenly Father gave this bit of help to me in advance of Aaron's call so I wouldn't panic at the thought of being left alone with the kids.

Another way that Heavenly Father has prepared our family is by prompting me to be more selective about the shows that I watch. I have been feeling this prompting for a while but managed to rationalize my way out of listening to it. I came to a breaking point and finally humbled myself enough to decide to listen. It has made a huge difference in our family. I feel like I have more time to think about my various responsibilities with family and my calling and what needs to be done. There is a better spirit in our home. Aaron commented on the fact that he hadn't realized how destructive our choices in tv had been.

This next blessing probably wouldn't have happened without removing of tv. A friend had been sick in the night, had a little baby with an ear infection and a little boy (who is John's age) who had been couped up in the house and needed to get out. So she asked if I could take her older son for the morning. Normally I am a germophob and bringing in a kid who has puking going on in the house wouldn't be my first choice. However, for this friend to ask this meant that she would have to be in a world of hurt because she doesn't ask for help. So I knew that she needed relief. The kids played amazingly well together. Afterwards I was a little worried we would get a stomach bug and end up puking. Aunt Mary was supposed to come on the weekend and if we were puking, she wouldn't be able to come.

While I was doing dishes I thought about a comment that a lady made in Sunday school the past Sunday. She said that fasting is a way for us to be like Christ because we assume a burden to lift and help another. I thought about how that principle applied to my situation. The opportunity to assume a potential burden for my friend to alleviate some pain for her. I thought about how Christ didn't count the cost of his sacrifice and how I shouldn't either. I was filled with feelings of gratitude at the opportunity to help out someone and for all the times that others had assumed a burden to help me. I no longer worried about if we got sick and Aunt Mary couldn't come - if it happened, it was still a blessing to help someone out. I thought about the blessing of being able to learn that lesson and how it wouldn't have happened had I been watching tv. It was a powerful lesson about service and sacrificing for others that I needed prior to this time when Aaron will have more responsibilities outside of our home.

As I reflected back on the experiences we have been having, I wanted to write them down so that you kids could know about them. It is humbling to see that Heavenly Father has a plan for our family and is moving forward with that plan - putting things into place to prepare us for the things that he would like us to do.

Halloween

This year Emma was a mermaid and John was Spider-man. They loved trick or treating and had a great time. The first kids to come to our door were the twin boys that live across the street from us. When I was walking to the door to answer it I could hear one of them say, "This is the most beautiful girl in the world. I can't believe my eyes!" These boys had drawn a picture of Emma and given it to her a couple of days ago. It made me giggle. Emma didn't hear their comments.

After trick or treating, John would get up in the morning and tell me he wanted candy for breakfast. He was quite bummed when I explained that he could choose between cereal and oatmeal. We had a mishap in the family and as a result the candy bags went up high in the pantry and have since been forgotten about. I can't say that I am up for reminding them either. They did get to eat some of it for dessert for a bit after Halloween. Emma has learned that she likes Nerds. John likes lolly pops.

We didn't exactly carve pumpkins this year. They have these things that turn your pumpkin into a Mr. Potato Head type thing. Emma's pumpkin was a witch. She loved that her witch had earrings. Probably because Emma wants earrings so bad she can taste it. Emma would take the witch pieces off her pumpkins and dress it up again and again. John's pumpkin was surprise, surprise, Spider-man.  

State of the Union

Yesterday the kids had some awesome moments.

Emma was explaining to Aunt Mary how to trick or treat. The first step is to eat all of your dinner. The rest was a step by step explanation of process but it made me giggle that dinner was definitely involved.

Emma also explained to my Dad that John had no idea what trick or treating was. I would like to point out for the record that it took years for Emma to figure out what this candy thing was. She played with the candy not knowing that you eat it. She never asked to open it or eat it. John had this down last year. He figured it out in about 30 seconds. I will however say that when I told the kids that we were going to do a trunk or treat John asked if we were going to climb a tree. Trunk. Get it?

I was putting John down to bed and he didn't want me to go and so he was hugging me. I get the most hugs when I am putting John down and about to walk out the door. He is at his snuggliest then - the most genius stall tactic a kid could use because who can resist snuggles? So he had his arm around me and said, "I am protecting you. You are getting stung." We have a Winnie the Pooh bear dressed up as a bee. So we talked about how Pooh doesn't like bees because they sting so he is dressed up as something scary.

The other day I made roasted veggies for dinner - potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, onions, and brussel sprouts. Emma didn't like them. She turned to me and said, "I don't like this dinner! YOu need to start making different dinners!" I giggled. She didn't appreciate that.

Lately

It seems I haven't written in a while so I thought I would comment on the state of the union.

John has crushes galore on every little girl and woman in the ward that is blond. His favorites are Marcy and Miss Danielle. He even thought a lady in an ad was cute and was embarrassed over liking her.

Emma has been reading up a storm. She will read just about anything you hand her. She reads the family scripture stories at night for us. She particularly loves Fancy Nancy books. I must admit I like them too. She has to read a book before she can text or play on the iPod. And oh how she loves to text! She is 5 going on 15. She will text Aunt Mary or Aaron and call them. One Sunday afternoon she called my dad, mom, Aunt Mary, and Aunt Emily about 8 times each. Apparently she had a hard time getting a hold of them because they all called her back on my phone - not to talk to me but to talk with her.

I have started taking Emma rock climbing and she loves it. And I love that she loves it. I am hoping to brainwash her and John into becoming climbers. Which means it totally won't work. I have taken John once and he didn't so much but he loved it once he kinda figured it out a little. My goal is to take her once a week.

John lives for legos and making "beep beeps." Those are fork lifts. He likes to have the zoo keeper drive the beep beep. He loves the color blue and hoards all of the blue legos and anything blue that he can get his hands on.

Santa Barbara A.K.A. Mary's House

We went to an Anderson Family reunion in Santa Barbara, California. We had a great time! We stayed in a house that had 4 bedrooms and a loft. Em's kids stayed in the loft which was super cool. This loft was essentially a closet. It had a huge ladder that took up the entire closet and took you up to what was probably an attic that had been made into a huge bedroom. Our bedroom had a little nook of a room off of the closet that a bunch of toy trucks in it. John was in love. There were several times when he asked to play in his room. Have at it kid! The house also had a pool, a pool table, a Foosball table, a trampoline, a hot tub, and nice patios to sit out on and enjoy the weather. There was also a cat that came with the house. Emma and John loved that the house came with a cat. I didn't share that same excitement. The owners had a spray bottle to spray the cat with if he was bugging us. I think I was the only one bugged. So if I saw the cat, he got sprayed. Everyone else loved on the cat. The owners also said that we should keep the doors shut at night because there are baby skunks that would come in the house. According to the owners, the skunks didn't spray. I wasn't interested in finding out.

Here are the highlights of the trip:

On Sunday after dinner, Mary brought out 13 boxes of oreos for another test tasting. Again, most flavors were gross. The basic flavors are good and the rest have no purpose being on a store shelf. The most surprising finding was that Josh likes watermelon oreos. Everyone universally agreed that they were gross.

Every time I turned around John had a cookie, gummy bear, swedish fish, M&M, or chip in his mouth. Mary even bought fruit loops cereal for the kids. They loved it. In fact today (back at home) John found fruit loops on the floor at church and you could just see he yearned to eat them. He knew that they were on the floor and we don't eat food off the floor. I caved and let Emma and John eat them. I know, I know, I am so nice to let my kids eat random food off the floor - I deserve a medal for mother of the year. Emma got to drink orange soda and that made her year. (On a side note, Emma was pretending to give Aaron money for the movies. He asked for money for candy and popcorn. She asked if he would like some money for a water. She has no idea people buys sodas.)

We went to the Channel Islands. We took an hour long boat ride out to the Island. Emma was pretty sea sick (as was I). So we sat in the back of the boat and hoped to not puke. We hiked around the island. We probably hiked for a mile, which is pretty good for a 2 year old and a 5 year old. Then we had lunch and played at the beach. Emma played with Amanda in the water and John just dug in the dirt. This boy was so content to just dig in the dirt the entire vacation. Aunt Mary bought some John Deer tractors and he was in heaven to have tractors and a shovel. Ben and Mary filled his swim shirt up with rocks and he would stand up and they would all fall out. John just laughed and laughed at this. So they did it a lot. Aaron swam out to a reef and looked at all the fish and stuff there was out there. This was a pretty brave thing since the air temperature wasn't super warm and the water was probably 60 degrees. He enjoyed the swim and adventure. The rest of the group hiked and then hung out on the beach with us. On the boat ride back, we gave Emma Dramamine to help with the nausea. After I gave it to her, Emily explained that the side effect was drowsiness. She wasn't kidding. Emma fell asleep just about as soon as she sat down on the boat. I couldn't wake her to get off so we transferred her to her car seat. She didn't wake up when we got home. Emily read her a book after we supposedly woke her up but she didn't remember it later on. It probably wasn't until half way through dinner that she was truly awake.She still slept fine that night.

The kids had a lot of fun swimming in the pool. It was a bit cold for my tastes, but the kids didn't even notice. There was a surf board in the pool that they played on and Aunt Mary bought blow up toys. There was a huge cube and a floaty thing and water cannons and more.

John dug in the dirt in the yard all day every day. He was in heaven. Every once in a while I would have to chase him out of a bird bath.

Emma commandeered Aunt Mary's phone and iPad and called, texted and facetimed everyone in the house a bajillion times. She also played games on the iPad.

We tried our hand at paddle boarding and kayaking in a harbor in Ventura.  I could paddle board in the harbor ok. Out in the ocean, I was getting sea sick. It didn't take much for me to tap out and head for dry land. Out in the ocean we could get pretty close to a buoy where seals were just lounging around and pushing each other off the buoy. As we would paddle past boats in the harbor we would pass a seal on the dock. It turns out that this trip inspired Aaron. He now craves kayaking. He wants to go a lot at home now. He has taken Emma once since we have been home.

We got to play games as a family. Grandma Lindy was a good sport and participated in one where she had to pick her nose and do the chicken dance. It made for some awesome video.

We went to a farmers market and saw how the granola half live. We got to try some unusual tomatoes and other things that were delicious.

We also went into Solvang and ate Danish food and looked at shops. Grandpa was nice to watch the kids at the park for us. It was pretty hot out so Grandpa earned his stripes that afternoon.

When it was over I really didn't want to leave. It was nice to just relax and enjoy family time together. We got to play tennis, basketball and go for walks. Oh, Aaron woke Ben, and Katie got up on her own and with Uncle Brian, they would go play basketball at the crack of dawn on vacation. It was a nice trip to just enjoy each others company.

Family Secrets

I took John to Costco today and had an awesome experience. I now that know that John will tell all of the family secrets.

I had to change John's diaper so I took him to the bathroom. During the process John in his full out loud voice tells me that I don't wear underwear. I tell him that I do. He tells me I don't and that Emma wears underwear. I insist I do... mostly because there are people in the bathroom. [As a note for future posterity - I do wear underwear.] We went back and forth for a bit. Finally the subject changed but I don't think I changed John's mind. The ladies in the stall hopefully were on my side but, but chances are they think kids don't lie.

On the way home from our trip John and I had a conversation:
John: What do mans do?
Me: I don't know. What do they do?
John: They sell things.
Me: Oh. What do ladies do?
John: Credit cards and babies.

He then proceeded to list off other things that "mans" do - drive excavators, concrete mixers, etc.

When Aaron got home, I related the "mans" story. Aaron asked John if he [Aaron] was a man. John said "no, you are just a dad."