Abi and her friend Mia wrote this poem and I thought it was pretty great.

The assignment was to use use a list of words the teacher had given them. They had to look up the words and use them correctly. I have to admit I had to have Abi define them for me.

Middle School

I walk into the phantasmagoric middle school

and see the treacherous bullies

stalking the mellow nerds.

The whimsical little girls skip past

and I think they should still be in third grade.

I also see the convoluted pictures hanging in the hallway.

First period I can hear the teacher ramble

about onomatopoeias,

as I sit freezing in my gelid chair.

After classI watch the bullies

wait in the restroom for the lethargic couch potatoes,

like a hunter hunting his prey.

As I make my way to science

the intercom starts to crackle.

The principal's tremulous voice rings out

and, just my luck, he calls my name.

I'm terrified, as I permeate

through crowds of morose teachers

and jaunty seventh graders.

I wish I felt as illimitable as they do.

What a relief!

It was just my mom, here with my lunch money.

Ugg, speaking of lunch,

all I have for lunch is a gaudy corndog

with a side of runny pudding

YUCK!

The only thing worth getting is the effervescent soda.

There is nothing to look forward to after lunch

especially not P.E.

All we play is gladiator.

As I change in the sultry locker room,

I think of the best route to take

to avoid those colossal eighth graders.

TWEEEEET! That's the sound of the whistle,

the game begins.

I run for cover in the bushes.

Ahhhh!!!

It is too late, they spot me.

I run and run and

I try to imagine them being

the mangy mutts that chase me

when i get off the bu... BANG!!!

Owww, I ran into the flagpole.

Yes, mom in coming to get me.

Having a concussion is better than

riding that musty old bus home.

Ugg, what a dreary day.

For our preschool program this year the kids are telling what they want to be when they grow up. I love to hear their choosen profession, it is usually different everyday. What's even better is when one of them says something the others think is cool; they all want to be that. Some of the answers are: Ninja cop, Super Hero, Cow Girl, Man from Halo, but I have to say today Ben came up with the most unique. I said,"Ben what do you want to be when you grow up?" he looked at me and said,"Wax." I thought I had miss heard him and I replied, "WAX?" He smiled "Yeah, I want to be wax." Needless to say no one else wanted to be wax. What a guy. He has high ambitions!

I know the scriptures say to multiply and replenish but never in my wildest imaginations did I think the laundry basket would take it so literally!!!!
I am not kidding when I say that only two minutes ago I had these emptied and the clothes put away. I know every mom can relate. I have taken on a whole new outlook instead of complaining I am just going to be thankful my kids have nice clothes to wear to school. Also, when Maggie wakes up seven times in the night I am just going to smile and be grateful I have a beautiful healthy daughter that likes to be with me.

Here he is again being my handy man. Since we have moved in I have been wanting something to cover the back door so the world couldn't see our business. I have wanted a covering really bad since we had Maggie and I would have to go down and make bottles in the middle of the night. I was always certain that if I looked out the window someone would be there watching me (It freaks me out just writing about it.) I have put in some hours searching for the right covering always coming up empty handed, that was until last night. I had to make a trip to Wal-mart and trying to take a short cut I happened upon the curtain isle. I hadn't even thought to look at Wal-mart. There not exactly what I had in mind but they will do, and Kev did a fabulous job putting them up for he. He is my hero!!!

Easter cuties!!!!

Uncle Rusty, Aunt Tracy, and Nathan have been sending fun little packages for the kids. For Easter they sent each one of the kids a gift card for Wal-mart. The kids spent days going back and forth about what they were going to buy. When I suggested that they save the money there was that moment of silence and then they went back to planning. We had a fun time shopping Thank you again!!!!!!

Baseball started Opening day was on Saturday and Mac did a great job. This is his first year with the pitching machine. He was a little nervous at first but he will now tell you he does a very good job.

SUPER TRACK STAR!!!

CONFESSIONS!!!

There are a few things on my mind and I figure if I get them written down I will be able to sleep better tonight.

1. I truly think that we have the most wonderful beautiful children ever. I am sorry to everyone else out there that feels they have the most wonderful beautiful children because I am finally confessing that Kev and I right on this one.(hehehehehe)

With that said I also have to confess that raising them in a righteous way keeping them on the right path and giving them all they need to be successful citizens is overwhelming. There are times when I think things are going well and then I look out the window and see Ben peeing on the stop sign, or find Abi's dirty (and I mean dirty) socks on the counter, or have Mac come home from school and tell me part of his day and then say, "You know how you yell a lot".... What.... (did you tell everyone I yell a lot, do you really think I yell a lot?) I guess all we can do is try our best, pray often, and cross our fingers.

2. I have recently decided that when you have to lie to your children about where the doughnuts went it's time to make a change. I started off the year with a bang, exercising, eating right, and then I fell off the wagon. I confess I felt a ton better when I was on the wagon. So starting tomorrow I am back on the wagon!!!!

3. This confession isn't for me but I had to add it because it made me laugh. I sent Kev to bed early tonight, he was so tired and I wanted him to get some good rest. Anyway I went up to check on everyone and wouldn't you know Kev was watching New Moon WITHOUT me. I caught him, I think he has a secret crush on Jacob. (ok so he wasn't really watching it he just wanted back ground noise because he couldn't load his Ipod.) Still it was funny!

Mac's class musical production......... Tikki Tikki Tembo Mac loves, loves, loves performing in his class music program. This year it was Tikki Tikki Tembo (don't know if I spelled this right, but Mac would say the whole name over and over and over. Needless to say we all said it over and over and over.)
He did so well. The whole time he had a big ol' grin on his face.

I wanted in on the fun. This picture was my motivation for part of the above confession. Maybe in three months I will pose for this picture again and we will notice a significant difference in the size of those cheeks.

Grandparents Day!!! Mac was so thrilled to have his Grandmas come be with him on Grandparents day. We found out about it late this year so we were glad they were free to come. Thanks Mom and Grandma for making the trip he has talked on and on about it!

We had a surprise visit from our friends the Bonniksens. They lived here a few years ago and Mac and Caelan were buddies. Caelan was able to go to school with Mac and they were so thrilled.

Happy Easter!!!!! That silly Easter Bunny sent a letter to the kids letting them know he would be doing an Easter egg hunt on the Friday before Easter so they would have a chance to find eggs in their new home. They were thrilled!!!
Maggie found her egg and decided to sit out and let the kids get the rest.

Find them they did!

After the egg hunt we packed up and started on our way to Beaver. We did make a short detour to St. George where mom met us and watched the kids so we could go to the temple. Thanks again mom it was a great day!! I love that brotherly love there in the back seat.

We had a great morning watching conference and then geared up for our annual Williams Easter egg hunt. We all have to wait down stairs while the Easter Bunny hides the eggs. Look at our own little bunny.

On your marks get set wait, we need to try this another way so it's fair (that's what dad said)

Here we go again..... GOOOOOOO!

This was a great year for the Anderson's. I am not going to say that too loudly or rub it in too much but can I hear a WOOT WOOT!!!!! Thank you so much mom and dad for making this such a fun tradition. The adults get as excited about this as the kids do. I have always loved looking for eggs and I am glad I haven't had to stop yet!! I've been thinking what a sight it will be when we are in our fifties, and mom and dad in their eighties out there hiding the eggs. Hey it will keep us young!

After the hunt the guys suited up and headed to priesthood (we missed you Luke.)

The ladies gathered all the kiddos and colored eggs

and then enjoyed a little chat time.

Easter morning there was a little surprise for the kids. The Easter Bunny only did the egg hunt in Page he brought their baskets to Beaver. They couldn't believe it!

Maggie highly enjoyed her first Easter.

After a wonderful conference, what beautiful messages were shared, we headed to Julies for a fabulous dinner. I love this picture look at these two little guys. They were so soft with her it was too cute.

A little auntie time,

and then some daddy time.

MMMMmmmmmm good grub, short ribs, beans, salad, and biscuits!

Deciding what she thinks about her uncle Jon. What can we say Easter was above and beyond!! Thank you mom and dad for always going to the extra effort to make things special. We loved being with everyone.

I came in the room the other night and this is what I found. How sweet is that? Abi is such a good helper she just adores Maggie.

Experiences that build character

I am a believer in character building experiences. I guess because I have had so many that I believe the wealth should be shared. My latest experience is, as most of you know our van is in bad shape. We are going to have to buy a new one and just haven't found the one we want to buy yet. So in the mean time I have been driving our old Green (or use to be green) Mazda a.k.a Tommy. Now Tommy is getting a little older his insides are a little crusty but he still purrs like a kitten or rather a lion. We took him in to the shop to have some things fixed that were rattling on the bottom of the car and a new tire put on. I thought all was well, there wasn't any more rattling. Wouldn't you know that as I am driving down the rode I hear something underneath the car and it didn't sound good. I look in my side mirror (no rear view it fell off) and see something bouncing in the road that had just fallen off my car. The cars behind me are getting out of the way so they don't hit it. A little mortified, I pull over, run up the road and kick whatever just fell off to the side of the road and get back in Tommy and go get Kev. It didn't run any different or sound any different, but we drove back to the part picked it up and carried on our way. Nothing like building character!!

Spring Break This year we had big plans for spring break. We were going to finally take Benjamin (and the others kids, it's just that Ben has not been when he was old enough to appreciate it.) to Disneyland. Well because our van broke down we decided we would just stay home. We did rent a car for one day and head over to St. George. What a great day that was. Julie and Luke met us there and we took turns doing a temple session. There is not a better feeling in the world than going to the temple.

Because we couldn't go anywhere we thought it wold be the perfect time to start our yard. We are so blessed to have a good friend that know a bit about putting in a yard. He came over everyday after work and helped us make decisions and start laying the concrete boarders.
Believe me they were not short on helpers. Mac and Ben thought it was great to be outside working with their dad.
Check out the concrete slabs we pulled out of the ground.

Humbling Experience

As I have said before I want to keep more of a journal this year, and with keeping that in mind we had quite the experience in February that I forgot to write about. It is tradition that for Super Bowl Sunday we head to Rusty and Tracy's house. It is one of our favorite traditions. Russ flies in from Oklahoma and it is a big event. This year we were just as excited. We packed the car, packed our dinner, pretty much packed everything but the kitchen sink. The kids were thrilled to be on the road at last. In fact because they were so excited we were surprised when about an hour into the trip they were all asleep, ahhhh the peacefulness. Kev and I were enjoying nice conversation and we, several times, commented on how peaceful the trip had been. You know the saying, "The calm before the storm." it's not a lie. When all of a sudden (I know a little dramatic but believe me it fits) the over heating light clicks on, bright, red flashing a little scary. We find the next place we can to turn off the road. When we do pull off there is smoke flooding out of the hood. Not something you want to see when you have a car full of kids and are not a mechanic. Kev pulls out the manual and then we hear the tapping on the window. (Please remember we are in the middle of nowhere, between Page and Flagstaff. )We pulled off where there happened to be a little store. The knocking came from the owner who informed us that this was private property and we couldn't park there. We were dumbfounded to say the least. He realized we weren't going anywhere and calmed down and told us he could have a tow truck there in ten minutes. Kev very kindly (because that's how he is) said can we wait a few minutes and see if we can get it to cool down. To make a long story short we were able to get it started and move on only to have it start over heating again. This time we pulled into a trading post called "Hanks". We were fortunate to have our Bishop only fifteen minutes behind us and he does know a thing or two about cars. After he arrived and we tried to get the van up and running we decided that it just wasn't happening and we had to throw in the towel. Bishop called friends to come get us and we rounded up our blankets to wait for our rescue. Did I mention I had packed dinner? Everyone was a little bugged that they had to wait for me to make their dinner before we left I didn't hear any complaining as they gratefully ate their dinner in our broken van.

I don't think I mentioned Hank, well all I can say is never judge a book by the cover, same goes for people. He was one of our many heroes that night. He saw that we were going to wait in the van for our ride. He pulled Kev aside and asked if he would bring us all in, he had a little place in back where we could keep warm (It was snowing.) Not only did he take us into his home, but he made us popcorn, offered us dinner, and turned on a movie. The kids thought he was pretty cool. Our ride, the Gardners, came not only to pick us up, but with a trailer to bring our van back home. I am a true believer that Heavenly Father answers our prayers.

Many things were learned that night, but the thing that we will always hold in our hearts is the kindness of others.

Here's a shout out to the man I LOVE!! Over spring break I happened upon a wonderful little website. It's called Pioneer Women, she has a lovely story about how her and her husband fell in love. (If your looking for a good love story check it out.)Anyway in her story she refers to her husband as "Marlboro Man." Well I was thinking hmmm how can I refer to my love. This wasn't easy because he carries many titles. This week he was my concrete man.
This week my handy man
and everyday he is father of the year!

She grow and grows and grows!! Miss Maggie is a joy! She is developing such a personality. One of her favorite things is when I am holding her, but not paying attention to her she put her lips together and says, "MMMMMMMM." It's like she is growling at me.
She does love her veggies. Instead of the spoon coming to her she comes to the spoon.

She loves to sleep on her belly.

This was our attempt at a curl, more like a mohawk

She loves going for a drive every now and then.

She loves her sister! I caught them lounging on a Saturday morning.

St. Patty's Day!! We started the morning off with a pinch. Mac was the smart one he made sure that his pajamas were green the night before so no one could get him. He had no mercy, I tried to claim my eyes were green, but he said you had to be wearing green. My green eyes have always worked before!
Abi made lunch, mmmmmm, green mac and cheese it's the best!

I told Abi that she and her friend could make cookies while Kev and I went to lunch. This is not what I had in mind. I was expecting to come home and have some cookies we could take to friends, we had one giant cookie, and it was green. They had fun and it tasted pretty good.

Even dinner was green! Green queso and green milk. We had a great day!