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!

Work Crew

I took the day off of work on Friday so that Amber and I could spend the entire day working on the front yard. We kept very busy and planted 33 plants, bushes, and shrubs. We redid some edging and created a flower bed around the flagpole. One thing that we did not get completed was putting bark in all of the newly planted beds.

On Saturday, Amber had an all day relief society retreat. She left at 6:30 a.m. I was left at home to watch all of the kids.

My goal was to get all of the bark spread out in all the beds by the time that Amber had gotten home. I enlisted each one of the kids in the process.



Aylee was my spreader. I would dump the bark in a pile and she would spread it out in the bed being careful not to cover up the plants that we had just planted yesterday.



Aliece and Johnathan and Alayna worked in the pickup truck. Their job was to push the bark to the rear of the truck so that I could easily put into the wheelbarrow. They were very efficient and did a terrific job.



Jace crawled around and played in the dirt. He occasionally sampled different varieties of dirt and rocks. He kept very busy and was extremely tired by the time we got done -- which was about 1 p.m.

I was really proud with the attitude that the kids had with being put to work all morning long. We had a good time working together -- it was just a lot of fun.

Once we got done with the yard, the kids started to clean their rooms. Jace was really tired so I put him to bed. While they were cleaning their rooms, I left them to go to the store to pick up Aylee's bike from the shop. I was so proud of the kids with their hard work that I stopped by the grocery store and bought lots of chocolates and candies and a half a gallon of ice cream.



Once they had finished their rooms, I brought them downstairs and we had an ice cream bar party. They loved it! About the time we were finishing up our ice cream party, Amber showed up and caught us in the act.

I was really surprised that everybody had a good attitude and a happy disposition throughout the day. They all had late nights -- Aylee had a sleepover, and Johnathan had a late birthday party for a friend. Despite their lack of sleep they were all able to enjoy the day together.

It was one of those perfect days.

The Grandma Dorma Report

Alayna was given a report template wherein she was supposed to interview a grandparent. She was supposed to have a parent fill out the responses on this piece of paper. They would then review and talk about the grandparent at their next preschool class day.

Amber asked Alayna who she would like to interview. She said you have Grandma Reed or Grandma Andersen. Alayna was adamant, "I want to call Grandma Dorma".

We had called to explain to Grandma Dorma what would be happening. We told her that Alayna would be calling her but Amber would be on the phone to help.

When the time came to call Grandma, Alayna was having a very hard morning. She didn't want to go to preschool and she didn't want to make the phone call. She was being shy and grumpy. Amber ended up having to ask most of the questions.

After Alayna delivered her report preschool, however, she was all excited about the report and about preschool.

We sure thought it was funny that out of her grandmas that she sees quite often, she was so sure she wanted to interview Grandma Dorma. We enjoy our visits with Grandma, however, they are not as often as our visits with her other grandmas.

Here is a copy of that report from the interview that Alayna made to Grandma Dorma.

Jumping In!

On Saturday, we took the kids to probably their last swim of the year. We had a only a few more punches left on our swimming punch card. Johnathan had been bragging about how he was going to jump off the diving board this time. Deep down inside, I thought he was just talking big talk.

However, when we entered the pool, Johnathan went straight for the diving boards. He wanted to go right away. I thought it might be best if he tried swimming first so that he can work out any kinks that he may have with swimming. We swam for just a few minutes. However, Johnathan kept begging to go to the diving boards. So I decided that he would probably be fine and we went over to the diving boards. He was not even nervous at all! He got on the diving board and just ran full board and jumped off.

I couldn't keep Johnathan off the diving board for the rest of the day. I had to finally pull him off a couple of times to have him take a break so that he wouldn't exhaust himself and die out in the middle of swimming back to the side of the pool.

We got a couple of videos of the jumps. The first video is of Aylee and Johnathan jumping together. The next video is of Johnathan and myself jumping. It is funny that just last time we went to the pool, we couldn't even hardly convince Johnathan to jump off the side of the pool into 5 feet of water.

Amber and I had decided that we would leave at 3:00 p.m. Right at three o'clock we are getting ready to get out of the pool. Just as we were doing so, there was an announcement that they needed to do a pool check in the kiddie pool. We got out of the pool and started getting ready to leave. As we were walking out, we saw pool in employees in the pool with nets, a bucket, and a bottle of chlorine. They were polling little brown chunks out of the water. Hmmmm, it didn't take much imagination to wonder what that was! We were glad that we were already done for the day.

See the Videos Below:


Aylee & Johnathan Jumping off at Same Time


John & John Jumping off diving board