Valentine Suckers

Look what I made today.

Aren't these so fun.

I plan to give these to the girls I visit teach, the primary kids, neighbors, and my nieces and nephews.

I made these by melting candy canes together.  See this site for more info.  I like this craft because it is easy and cheap.  I got my candy canes for 12 cents at after Christmas sales.

Father's Day / Fishing

Candid pictures are the best: Jake has his face stuffed and my mom looks Chinese. :)

The man of the hour, my father.  Doing what he does best, or at least what he is dang good at.  I caught one fish, Jacob caught two, and dad caught 20!

Jakes 29th B-Day

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Tulip Festival

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Oler Girls Weekend / Passover Dinner

Happy Easter

[caption id="attachment_546" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="The kitchen seems to be one of our favorite places to hang out. The boys are all talking about farming and business. It was fun to have Joe celebrate with us. I even saw him giddily running around to find clues outside  for the adult Easter egg hunt. It was a hoot!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_549" align="aligncenter" width="717" caption="Everyone filling the eggs for the grandkids Easter egg hunt.  So much candy!"][/caption]

Shan's 31st B-Day

K-so I love cards and I am always so sentimental I want to keep them. However, they just end up in a box and I never look at them. And then I boxes and boxes of "stuff" I never look at. I thought it would be a good idea to record my b-day cards here and then I don't have to store anything and I will actually probably end up re-reading this blog sometime.

This is what JoAnn wrote in my birthday card:

Dear Shan,

We wanted you to know just how special you are to us.  We love you so much and we thank our Father in Heaven for sending you to Jake and the rest of us.  We have needed you in our family and we love you deeply.  Have a great day.

Love,  Dad and Mom

This is what Becca wrote in my card from her:

Happy Birthday!  I am so happy and excited about the news!  (I told her I was pregnant)  You gave me this shirt on my birthday 10 years ago and I have been saving it to give back to you as soon as you were pregnant.  What a wonderful thing to give it back to you on your birthday!

I am so thankful for our friendship!  Heavenly Father truly blessed me all those years ago.  You totally helped me survive my 1st year of college and have been a trusted confidantever since.  I get such strength from you.  Welcome to this new phaze in your life.  What a lucky little one to have you as a Mom!

Love ya,  Rebecca

Jake and His Dreams

I have been having some strange dreams about having children, lately.  I will share two of the three that I had.  If you're wondering why I'm not sharing the 3rd, it's simply because I don't remember it.  I do remember, however, that it was along the same line as these two, and it involved Sherika. Anyway, story #1:

Jenny and Dave have a little girl and they didn't have any trouble getting pregnant with her.  They felt bad for us thinking that we wouldn't be able to have any children of our own, so Jenny promised me that she would give us their next child.  Well, Jen got pregnant with her second kid.  Shantell and I were pretty excited and we awaited the day that Jenny would give birth and give us our first child.  After 9 months, Jenny had her baby.

Later, Jen and I were walking in a park and she was crying.  She decided that she didn't want to give up her baby and that she wanted it for herself.  I calmly explained to Jenny that she made a promise and that the baby was ours.  I just remember that we kept going back and forth and I was doing my best to help Jenny understand that this child was not hers to keep :).

The second dream involved Tony and Dusti Evans.

I was talking to Toni Evans one day and she was explaining to me that Dusti had a child a few years back out of wedlock and that she didn't want to keep it.  Toni was forced to take the baby and raise it, even though she was well past what she considered to be her child-raising years.

Then she confided in me telling me that she found out that Dusti was pregnant again.  Dusti's husband was a decent guy (didn't smoke or do drugs) and that Dusti never did, either.  She knew that Dusti didn't want this baby, either, and that Toni would have to raise this one as well.

I got excited and told Toni that Shantell and I were thinking about adopting, but were afraid of getting a crack-baby, etc, and that we would be so happy to adopt this child so that she would not have to take care of it.  Toni was grateful and Shantell and I were ecstatic.

It's kind of hard to say that a dream is random when you start having as many as I've had along the same theme.

While Jacob was in San Diego

• I hosted the Bishopric FHE. A small group of us played a Star Wars trivia game. I of course had my traditional Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for the treat. I love this treat because I don't have to make anything. I also have a coupon for buy one dozen get the second dozen free. A good treat at a great deal--you can't beat that.


• I spent one evening doing endowments at the temple with the ward.


• I had my middle eastern dance class.


• I took Cuddles to get her nails clipped and also to get some of her shots. I go to this bargain place, however I had to wait forever and it ended up taking about 3 hours.


• I attended various back-to-school meetings and set up my lab.


• I taught my first week of school.


• I read a book.


• I looked online for new recipes. I am really struggling with eating. Nothing sounds good and I honestly would rather be hungry than eat. I figured if I could find some new recipes this may help me eat better. Trust me, I don't have an eating disorder, I just really hate cooking and nothing ever seems to be worth eating.


• I discovered the amazing Eyre family and their blogs and valuesparenting.com. I went on an Eyre binge and checked out as many of their books at the library and read up on good parenting. I also was introduced and actually checked out the book written by said Eyre family on "How to Talk to Your Child about Sex." I was intrigued that they would encourage parents to have the birds and bees talk when children are 8 years old. This way the communication door would be open, children really don't know enough yet to be too embarrassed, and you can influence they way they view sex and leave a wholesome impression before the world distorts everything.


• I went to an enrichment opening social. We played a cool get-to-know you game. Have people line up in two even lines. The person opposite from you is your one-question conversation partner. Out of the norm questions were written on a piece of paper and you would talk to your partner about it for one minute (literally, she had a timer). Then the paper is passed down the line one way while one of lines rotated in the opposite direction. This way you got to know at least one obscure thing about everyone in attendance. It was fun.


• I had the viser in the Honda fixed at the dealership for free as it is still under warranty.


• I spent an evening with John, Amber, and kids eating dinner and playing a game. I'm sure John and Amber were taking pity on me.


• I met with a Caroline from Classic Demo's so I can have adventures demonstrating new products in stores and earn some quick cash.


• I wrote and mailed letters inviting everyone to mom's surprise birthday party.


• I bought a box of peaches from


• I did not do any cooking. I mainly ate sandwiches, peaches, toast, and cereal/oatmeal.

Happy Thanksgiving 08

Fee Fi Fo Fum, who stole my turkey drum? I love this picture!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a lot of fun. This year all the family congregated in Provo. Those visiting took turns staying the night at our house and John & Amber's. The Thanksgiving meal was pretty typical with turkey, Amber's famous candied yams, my delicious mashed potatoes (the secret is cream cheese, honestly these are so good that you don't even have to add gravy or butter.), rolls, and a specialty salad by Joe, of course. Although there was plenty of food to go around, I'm always surprised at how small Andersen Thanksgivings are. I'm used to the Oler Thanksgivings with about 40 different families all contributing.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at John and Amber's house. Jake and I sure do wish they had a basement where the kids could go play. :) Before we went over to John & Amber's for Thanksgiving dinner Jake, Joe, and I went to play at the park by our house. We played free-for-all-b-ball and football. The boys took turns playing defense and quarterback while I played receiver the whole time. This was my second favorite thing about this years Thanksgiving. We had a lot of fun and I was totally worn out.

On Friday each family rented a room at a hotel in Midvale with an indoor swimming pool. We had so much fun swimming! We had races to see who could swim the farthest under water, races to one end of the pool and back, and competitions to see who could walk on their hands the farthest. I think Dave won all of the competitions. :) Then we split up into teams and played water football. Joe, Jake, and I were on one team and John, Nae, and Dave were on the other team, Aylee would be on the offensive team. We had so much fun dunking each other (mostly Dave dunking everyone :) ) wrestling for the ball etc. It was so fun! This was my favorite part of Thanksgiving.

Jake also instigated playing "Spoons" in our room and we went to the Planetarium on Saturday.

Nae and Dave fighting ove the spoon.

Side Notes:

• Jen went to the emergency room on Wed. before Thanksgiving. She was unable to relieve her bladder. The hospital finally had to put a catheter in her bladder and make an appointment for her to see a specialist on Monday, after Thanksgiving. Scary and expensive. Things were also further complicated because Jen had a root canal and is pregnant. Her tooth had quite a lot of infection and it was all swollen and looked so sore. We all felt for her.


• Both Jen & Amber are pregnant again. I am happy for them but sad that I cannot get pregnant. We started trying to have kids BEFORE Jen and Dave and yet they will soon have two kids and we don't have any.


• I know Jake's family feels for us not being able to get pregnant. I really felt that everyone was making a special effort to make me feel comfortable; it seemed like Amber, Jen, John, and everyone were trying to avoid talking about pregnancy too much out of consideration for me.


• I love Jacob's family so much! They are so loving, caring, and accepting.

Moving to Arbon?

I have been stressing over moving to Arbon. I'm having a lot of second thoughts about moving there. I feel like I have finaly ajusted to Provo, I finally made friends, and we have worked so hard to build up our house finishing the basement, decorating, etc, and I have an unheard of teaching dream job, and I have so many things I am looking forward to fixing up our yard, Farmers Market, Witches Night Out, etc. We live across the street from the mountains and basically a private hike, yet enjoy the conveniences of the city. I am really starting to enjoy the city life. It is so nice to be 4 minutes from the gym, and grocery store. We have the best of both worlds living here.

So I was stressing over moving to Arbon. I have been praying for guidance and felt spiritually impressed when reading my scriptures. I felt like the circumstances of Ammon and King Lamoni were similar to us and moving to Arbon.

Alma 27:7-14

7 And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if he say unto us, go down unto our brethren, will ye go?

8 And the king said unto him: Yea, if the Lord saith unto us go, we will go down unto our brethren, and we will be their slaves until we repair unto them the many murders and sins which we have committed against them.

9 But Ammon said unto him: It is against the law of our brethren, which was established by my father, that there should be any ^aslaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren.

10 But the king said unto him: Inquire of the Lord, and if he saith unto us go, we will go; otherwise we will perish in the land.

11 And it came to pass that Ammon went and inquired of the Lord, and the Lord said unto him:

12 Get this people ^aout of this land, that they perish not; for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them; therefore get thee out of this land; and blessed are this people in this generation, for I will ^bpreserve them.

13 And now it came to pass that Ammon went and told the king all the words which the Lord had said unto him.

14 And they gathered together all their people, yea, all the people of the Lord, and did gather together all their flocks and herds, and departed out of the land, and came into the wilderness which divided the land of Nephi from the land of Zarahemla, and came over near the borders of the land.

• I truly desire to honor Jacob as head of the house. If he fasts and sincerely prays and feels inspired that we should move to Arbon. I will support him in this and we will move. (Of course, I will fast and pray too.)

• Moving to Arbon will be a major life changing event. It is important we give it the attention it deserves as well as, include our Heavenly Father with such a big decision.