Our Haunted House

This afternoon I had some extra time at home with the kids and with Amber. We took advantage of that extra time by creating a Halloween video for our family. Each of the kids pretended to be a ghost or other Halloween entity. We took a few shots of them acting as well as some background shots. We then played around with our green screen and with the at video editing software.

We spent about an hour together working on it. Everyone had a good time except for Jace. We still managed to capture him in action though!

Feel free to look at the video below. Hope you enjoy it! Oh, and happy Halloween!



The Video

The Witch left me with the Kids!

This weekend was the designated Andersen girls night out. A couple of months ago, Shantell invited all the girls over 18 to join her for a witch's a night out. There was a witch event in Salt Lake City that was supposed to be really fun. I took the last part of the day off of work so that I could come home and watch the kids while Amber joined the rest of the women in their adventures.

Not to be outdone by the cackling women, we had a little party here at the house in their absence. Aylee watch the kids while I ran to the store and got some candy toppings. The kids played with friends for about an hour and a half while I made dinner and sugar cookies.




After dinner, we had a sugar cookie decoration activity. The kids had a great time mixing up frosting, choosing candies, and arranging them creatively on their baked cookie. Just before we were ready to eat our newly decorated cookies, the girls called and announced that they were coming over to do a mini parade for us.




Aylee made a special sign for the women that we hung over the door. The sign said, "Welcome Witch Night Party Girls".

We frosted some cookies for the pointed hat clad women and demonstrated the our decorated cookies. They then showed us their costumes, cackled around the front yard for the neighbors to hear, and got several photo shots in our miniature Grove by the driveway.




All of the kids thought it was a neat thing to have the women, all dressed up as witches. Jace, however, was the only one with reservation. He took one look at that much estrogen dressed in black and made up with bluish purple makeup and decided he would rather be somewhere else.



After the gaggle of witches left for their special event, the kids and I snuggled down into the playroom and watched a movie. The movie was a little bit scary for the two younger girls. It was a movie made for families, what it had some jumpy scenes here and there. It ended well which made both Aliece and Alayna happy. In fact, as Alayna offered our family prayer just before bedtime, she thanked the Lord that the boy, Tom, in the movie, was able to be reunited with his family in the very end. :-)

Conference Fun!

The kids have been very excited for Conference this weekend. Saturday morning Aliece woke up and the first thing she asked me was, "When does conference start?" I told her it would be a couple of hours. "Oh!", she exclaimed, "I want it to start now!"

The kids had a fun time with some conference games that Amber prepared for them. Aylee laminated some fun coloring pages and other projects that could be written on with dry erase markers and then erased with a cloth. The kids had a ball.

Johnny had a non-member friend come over to work on their space derby kits together. We ran a little long with the kits, so his friend stayed and watched the first Saturday session with us.

Amber and I also made a quick trip to the store to by a cheap vacuum cleaner - our last one really sucks...well, doesn't suck...you get the idea :-). Therefore, in between sessions we were cleaning house, moving beds, and de-junking the office, etc.

Cornbelly Fun with Alayna

On Thursday, Alayna had a field trip to Cornbelly's with her preschool class. Amber went along for the fun.

They had a great time playing on all of the toys, bounce houses, and photo ops. Alayna and Jace even got to buy a little pumpkin. Alayna was so excited!

Conference Kit Movie

Earlier this week the kids made a conference kit for their cousins. I wanted their cousins to receive the kit before we posted the video. They should have received it by now, so I am posting the online version.

I thought the kids did a pretty good job!

To view the video directly, go to this link.

Green Screen Fun!

As part of our Sunday activities yesterday, the kids and I decided that we would make some videos regarding General conference and church that we would send out to their little cousins.

I remembered that when we bought our latest video editing software, a green fabric screen came along in the package. We had never tried it out, and since we had plenty of time yesterday we dug it out of the closet and set it up.

We made some movies of the kids talking and/or singing to their cousins. The software made it easy to replace the green background with a picture of our choice.

Aylee made a microphone out of a toilet paper tube and tin foil.

The cousins will be getting their movies in the mail this week. However, I thought I would post one extra video that we did not record onto the CDs. This one is a little song that Aliece made up. It features her in front of the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. There are a lots of concerts at the Delta Center, so that is why we chose out as the background.

So, sit back and enjoy the movie!

For those that cannot see the movie below, visit the following link: Aliece Jamming.

Clone Troops & Hanna Montana Winners

We had a very busy Saturday today. One part of our fun and hectic day was our kid dates. It was my turn to have a daddy date with Aylee. She wanted to go see "Star Wars: clone wars". However, Johnathan also wanted to see that really bad. Aylee wanted to see it with Johnathan, so she invited him to come along.

We were kind of late due to other shopping and adventures of the day. So we were racing down the freeway in the pickup truck. The only theater in Utah County that was playing the movie was in Spanish Fork. We got off of the Spanish Fork exit only to find out that the theater was not where I thought it was. We drove up and down the road a bit before I started to get nervous. The movie was supposed to start any minute now, and the kids were getting restless. Aylee and Johnathan were both getting a little nervous and kept asking where the theater was.

We finally had to call Amber to see if she remembered where the theater was. She gave us an idea for she thought it was located, and so we took off once again for that area of town. We were in luck, the theater was at the location she expected it to be. We got in just as the movie was starting.

I was not expecting much from the movie as I have had lots of friends go to see it. However, they said that it is made for kids and that the kids would like it. They were right. Aylee and Johnathan both seemed to enjoy the movie a lot.

While we were at the movie, Amber took the other kids to Pioneer Park. Shantell was doing a booth at the Farmer's market there. They went to say hi to Shantell. While they were there, they noticed that the park was also hosting a Boys and Girls Club event that was open to the public. They had tons of bounce houses and activities that were all free of charge.

One of the booths at the fair was a Wal-Mart vision Center booth. At that booth, they had a drawing for a plastic milkshake cup with a pair of sunglasses wrapped around it accompanied by a Hanna Montana case for the Hanna Montana sunglasses. It was all decorated with a fancy bow and shiny tassels. Aliece was ecstatic. She really wanted to win that price. Amber said that she was so dramatic about it that the people in the booth were laughing their heads off. Aliece quickly wrote down her name on the slip of paper and our home phone number was recorded.

When Amber got home, there was a message on the phone saying that Aliece had won the beautiful and grand prize that she had so coveted.

Amber was already home with the children, and she didn't want to go back to the park. So, she called me and asked me to go pick it up on our way home from the theater.

When I picked it up, they were clearing out the booths. I mentioned the name of Aliece and this gal excitedly said Aliece had won the prize! I told her that I would take it home to her and that she would be very excited. I mentioned that this was the perfect prize for her. The gal asked if Aliece was not there at the park. I explained to her that Aliece had gone home with Amber and the other kids. She was a little disappointed as she was really excited to see Aliece's reaction. They definitely remembered our child. Her enthusiasm is always so contagious, that they really hoped that they could see the delivery of the prize.



It is funny how Aliece always tends to win those types of things. I don't know if it is her happy, positive karma, sheer dumb luck, or if people see her excitement and rig the system because they want her to win so badly. Given Aliece's performance at the booth originally, and the attendants' rapt enjoyment of Aliece's enthusiasm, Amber does wonder if the system was rigged a little bit in Aliece's behalf.

Whatever cosmic forces were in place, it still amazes me that her excitement and enthusiasm always tends to draw the winning results!