Painting the Cabinets of DEATH!!!

I have a man that loves me and let me tell you I had no idea the amount of work we would do the next 5 days when I finally talked him into painting our cabinets with me.  So all these DIY bloggers who say they just need a "quick change" and so they decided to paint the cabinets can just shut up now.  This was a HARD project!  We hit several bumps along the way.  The first one being sanding. Just take off the doors and sand them down with an electric sander, not hard right?  Well our cabinets had this sticky goo all over them, you know when grease gets on something and then dust settles on it.  Imagine that all over the cabinets.  The sander could even scratch the service so we had to take a scraper and scrape off all the cabinets before we could sand them.  The next bump was how do you pain cabinets inside and out, what do you do with the doors???? So after sanding them all down we attached them with the original hard ware and realized will just have to do touch ups the best we could.  Then we though we will use my Dad's paint gun.  It will go on nice and smooth and it will go really quick.  Well pain guns don't go on really smoothly unless you can stand back away and with all the nooks and crannies we had a big mess on our hands with our first coat or primes.  Okay scratch that, get nice purdy brushes and flortrol and do it by hand. FIVE COATS LATER...  5 days to complete the project, and our poor children's brain going to mush by all the games they played on the ipad and movies they watched we were finally done!  It does look nice and clean and opens the kitchen up and I think it will help with buyer appeal when we finally sell this place.  But I would not recommend painting your cabinets unless you have to, like we did.  It is worth the money to tear out and get new ones!  Thanks babe for helping me do this project, I would have lost my mind without you.

Earning Stars

We've been doing star charts at our house to help the kids learn how to take a little more responsibility around the house, be rewarded for good behavior, and learn delayed gratification.  Christian chose a cool batman toys set to earn and Evan chose a monster truck set.  We bough it and put it on top of the fridge so they could see it every day.  They earned stars for helping me with chores, making their beds, clearing their plates, cleaning up toys, sharing, choosing the right, etc.  They could also loose stars if they were behaving badly.  This works really well for Christian since time out is kind of old school for him now that he is getting older.  I remembered to take pictures of Christian's chart, but not Evan's  :(  trying to get better, I've fallen out of the habit.  Since this picture Christian has completed another star where he earned $10.  He then used another $10 he saved and we pitched in $10 and he bought himself a razor scooter which he loves.  Evan is close to completing his chart too.  Love these kiddos.

White Bums in the Summer Time

I think Brian Regan said it best, he said he loves having kids because he gets to have conversations with his kids he would never have with an adult. This my friends is one of those conversations:

We have spent a lot of time outside this summer and the boys have become super tan. We were getting ready for a bath and Christian stripped down and as he was climbing into the bath tub I said "Look at your cute white bum!" He turned his head to the side and hitched his hip up so he could get a better look at his little bootie and said "What the heck!!! Is that going to wash off Mom?!" He was very concerned. I couldn't stop laughing. "Buddy your bum is white because the rest of your body has been out in the sun all summer" I explained. "How do we fix it? I don't want a white bum." "Well sweetie you would have to run around outside without any clothes on to get you bum tan." "Well I can't do that, then everyone will see my private parts!" More laughing from me. "Baby, everybody has a white bum in the summer time, I do and so does Daddy.." at this point Evan came into the bathroom stripped down ready for the bath, "Evan even has a white bum" When I said this Evan hiked up his hip to take a better look at his bum and said "What the heck!!!"
I have never laughed so hard before. Love these two crazies :)

Something weird happened...

BOTH of these cute little boys started school today. Christian's first day of Kindergarten and Evan gets to go to Preschool twice a week. Which leaves me home twice a week by myself and it's a little strange but freeing all at the same time. Both of them were so excited to head off the school. Me and Dan watch as Christian crossed the field over to his teacher- I know people say it but you really don't get it until you are there... MAN!!!! My kids are growing up too fast! Love you two little crazies :)

Family Reunion Time

We had our annual Anderson family reunion this year again and it was fun! Of course I forgot to bring/use my camera for a lot of it but here are the few pics I have. We hiked to timp cave and toured the cave which I haven't done since I was little, it was awesome, the boys loved it so much. Christian couldn't believe he was in "Real Cave!"


Almost all of the cousins minus Bradley and Braden


On our way up Raymond found this tree and sat Whitney in it, and then all the kids had to have a turn. About half way up Evan wanted his shirt off so we let him strip until it was time to go into the cave.

Here's the Christian boy :)


Inside the cave with a cheesy grin


Christian and Dan by the heart of timpanogous.


We headed down to The Pinnacles on Wednesday and boy did we have ourselves some fun. From potato guns, to marshmallow guns, to water balloon launcher, water bottle rocket launcher, making bracelets, playing in the kayaks, playing in the little stream and in the water hole with the rope swing, hiking to the top of one of the cliffs, playing on the tire swing, Christmas in July, playing "Everybody is It", and eating lots of yummy food we really had a great time

Ragnar 2012

Dan ran the Ragnar again this year with a team from his work. He was awesome! His team came in 28th place out of 1100 teams! It's funny because before the race he said I think this may be the last time I do this, but after finding out where they came in...well he might just have to do it at least one more time :) Good job baby, I'm proud of you :)

Flamming Gorge

We took a trip with Jon & Melissa and their friends the Quilters. We went to the Vernal Dinosaur Museum and then camped up near Flamming Gorge and it was beautiful! I like to refer this trip as the "Bed Head is Forever" camping trip :)


Christian has wanted to go fishing for forever and to be honest me and Dan aren't really the fishing type. But when the opportunity came to go on this trip we borrowed some gear and gave it our best go for Christian's sake. We first tried fishing at the dam.


After about 5 minutes the boys got distracted by all the sticks and rocks and Dan was left to valiantly catch a fish for the boys.


Can't you see the excitement in his face?


Sadly we had no luck at the dam, but a local told use about Moose Pond where they keep the pond stocked and it's easy for kids to catch the fish. So we headed out to the pond. Evan was left to his own imagination and was having a great time. It was really windy the entire time we were there and so sadly we never caught a fish, but we did give it our best try. I think Dan may try another lake more local since we have a fishing license now, we'll see how it goes ;)


I remember coming to this dinosaur museum and thinking it was a lot bigger. It is short and sweet and just right for the kids, we had a great time.

The Evan Boy

The last couple of post have been about Christian so I need to show Evan some love for a minute, and what better way with a picture of Evan picking his nose! Ha ha, classic I had to post it. :)
Evan is the ultimate little brother, he loves Christian and it's rare to see them not playing together. But he also can keep himself entertained when Christian is not around, he also has a very wild imagination and uses it all day every day.


Evan refuses to takes naps these days, but sometimes church kills him off and he falls asleep eating popcorn. Too cute :)


And this my friends was a stupid mother moment. Always, Always, Always check the ingredients even if you think you've checked them previously. This is what happens to my little guy if milk gets into his system. We have been so cautious and haven't had a reaction for a long time that this one really shook me and Dan up and helped us remember that we need to always be diligent no matter what. Poor guy, thank goodness for Benadryll right?

Preschool Graduation

Christian has loved preschool and is sad to leave Miss Cathy but excited to move on to Kindergarten! His ceremony was short and simple and I loved every second of it.

The Water Main

Right before our Disneyland trip we received a letter form the City telling us that our water usage had gone up significantly and that they had sent a technician out to check the meter to see if there was a leak, and the technician confirmed and they suggested we call a plumber. Well long story short, we found out that we had a slow leak in our water main...oh don't we just love home ownership sometimes... After receiving an incredibly expensive quote from the plumber Dan started calling his family. All of the married couples except for us own multiple homes that they rent out. Lucky for us Jerry had to replace a main and new how to do it. I am lucky to be married to a guy who is not afraid to do his research and get his hands dirty, he saved us a pretty penny! We also lucked out because Norbert's cousin owns a trenching business and offered to do the trenching for free. Christian and Evan sat obediently on the steps to watch the trencher work it's magic and after he was finished and turned off the engine Christian stood up and declared, "That...was...AWESOME!"

Christian is 5!

I cannot believe Dan and I have a 5 year old, things are running at lightning speed it feels like some times. Anyway, this 5 year old was very excited for his birthday this year. On his actual birthday we opened presents and then after Dan got home from work we went to the Provo Beach Resort to let the kids play in the 4 story playground there, it's always a blast. Christian was very specific that he wanted a candled that was a number 5 and not just 5 candles. Later on we through Christian a super hero party which was very fun, my battery in the camera died, but Heidi did get some pics on her phone, so someday when I remember to get those from her I'll add those to this post. Christian is turning into such a sweet little boy who has a wild imagination and a thirst to know about everything and how it works. He has a little engineer brain, it will be interesting to see his interest take shape as he continues on in school. We sure love you little boy :)

Christian's Imagination Hard At Work

Dan & Beth: "Christian! Why would you do that?"
Christian: "I wanted to be an X-men"
Beth: "Dan, get the camera. Christian we are going to take a picture but I don't want you to write all of yourself again, okay?"
What a crazy boy! Love this kid :)

DISNEYLAND!!!

Well we finally went to Disneyland and it was so fun!!! Worth the long car ride and the moo-lah to make this trip happen :) We woke up super early at 4:30 in the morning packed the stuff that hadn't been packed and put the sleepy boys in the car and off we went. Our hotel was nice and conveniently across the street from a hospital just in case we needed an ER for Evan- thankfully we didn't.


The next morning we woke up bright and early, took advantage of the free breakfast, put some sunscreen on, packed the back pack with treats and food and we were off as a family to have our first Disneyland adventure :)



Disney knows how to do parades and we watched this one a couple of times, so fun! We spent the ENTIRE day in the park, we kept asking the kids do you want to go back to the hotel and take a rest but they always said "NO!!! We want to ride more rides!" So we stayed for well over 12 hours. We finished the night off watching Fantasmic, sadly we do not have any pictures of that but it was the best. After the show was over we piled the boys into the double stroller where they promptly fell asleep. As we were pushing them down main street we heard Christian muttering something so we stopped so we could hear him and what he said was "Mickey Mouse is TOO awesome for me!!!"

The next day we spent in California Adventure, thankfully California Adventure opens later than Disneyland so we were able to get a little rest under our belts before we headed out. We did the new Toy Story ride which was really fun. While we waited in the line they had a Mr Potato head who would pick you out of the crowd, he kept talking to Christian and it was really funny. We also got to ride the big Mickey Mouse ferris wheel and participate in the GI Joe show, which Christians was really into. We also went to the Disney Jr show which is done all with puppets except for one person who host the show and the kids LOVED it. In general, California Adventure was more of a watch-a-lot-of-cool- shows instead of ride a lot of rides place for the smaller audience. But it was a nice change of pace and we had a great time.


For our third day in California we decided to take a break from Disneyland and go to the beach. Both the boys were excited to go to the beach. Christians was nervous and excited because he was worried about sharks getting him. Christian loved running around in the waves and trying to race them. Evan was more of a sand fan combing the beach for shells and sticks. Dan did his duty as a Daddy and built a sand castle and I sat on the towels and tried to take pictures and enjoyed the view. When we got there we stuck our toes in the water and it was COLD!!!! Also because there was no one in the water we saw quite a few dolphins very close to the beach which was fun. Dan found this shell that had a huge barnacle on it (at least that's what we think it was) which was still alive and moving. Christian and Evan took the shell and studied it and poked at it for about 15 minutes and then Christian suddenly threw it to the ground and said "That's DISGUSTING! YUCK!" ha ha


Our last day of Disney we had a pass that let us into the park an hour early and boy did we get a lot of rides done within that first hour. We had the kids tell us all the favorites they wanted to ride again and tried to ride them a couple of times that day. Some of the favorites: Evan loved the Winnie the Pooh ride and the Gadget Coaster which we rode at least 7 times it was also a favorite of Christians. Christian loved It's a Small World. He though Pirates of the Caribbean was scary and he loved the Haunted Mansion- go figure right? We also loved the Finding Nemo ride, and Christian decided that he did love the Rocky Mountain Railway so me and Dan got to ride a few times with him while we traded off with Evan.

Now for my favorite set of pictures. These are my favorite because Dan started taking pictures of him and the boys on the roller coasters and they are so cute! Starting with the one right above to the left. Christian has luck, almost every time he rode a bigger roller coaster ride he would get the Number 1 spot.


This next picture is what happens when Christian gets the camera and takes a picture of me and Dan when we are trying to decide what to do next. It totally looks staged but it is not :) The bottom right picture is of us riding the double decker bus and you can see how tired we are, but still having fun!

On our third day to the park Christian decided he wanted pictures with as many character as we could. So we did our best to chase down characters. Christian told Dan "I know it's just a person in a costume, but it's still fun anyways!" The characters were so cute with him as well and he would give them big hugs and high fives. Evan was a excited while waiting to see the character but then became shy when the time came for their turn.


We had such a great, tiring, fun fun fun time! Can't wait to do it again in a couple of years :)