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.