First Year!

Lorien FINALLY got to go to girls came this year.  She has been waiting patiently for a full year...which seems longer than what other girls have to wait.  She is a fall birthday an in our church the kids are grouped into classes by their birth year.  So most of her classmates at church are a grade ahead of her in school and have birthdays before Girl's Camp.  Making her church classmates eligible for Camp before her.  She has regretted my decision to keep her at home an extra year ever since we moved over to the East Bay.  She has a lot of friends in her church class and is sad, sad, sad that she is not in the same grade as they are.  

Poor baby girl.

Anyway, she got to go to Girl's Camp this year.  We packed her up and sent her off bright and early Monday morning.  And I didn't hear a word from or about her for almost a week--until late Friday night when I picked her up.  

Good bye my darling girl!

She returned home to us, safe and sound (and filthy).  She also came home glowing with love and appreciation for all of God's creations--even her family!  She had adorable stories to share of friendship and support from her fellow campers.  It was lovely.  

Hard work rewarded...

When we set the goal of reading the whole Book of Mormon as a family back in January we decided there would be a fantastic reward for meeting out goal in time (cover to cover by May 19th).  I mean, a reward other than the "increased measure of the spirit" etc. promised by the Prophet.  When we were about 2/3rds of the way through we thought we actually had a shot at success and had better come up with the reward.  After a family discussion we decided that if we finished by May 19th we would take a family vacation up to Glass Beach in Fort Bragg.  We would make it an overnight trip and even stay in a hotel!  

Because of birthday celebrations, end of school madness and other commitments we were not able to make the trip until almost a month later, right after school got out. 

We drove up early Friday morning and went straight to the beach.  For some reason or another it is impossible to get to a beach in Northern California without taking a lengthy drive on windy roads, through redwood forests and over a mountain pass.  The route we took to Glass Beach was particularly windy and we all got carsick.  Poor Colter was doubled over and crying in his car seat.  I finally gave up on law keeping and took him out of his car seat and let him sit in my lap.  

We made it to Glass Beach around 3 in the afternoon.  If you haven't heard, in the early 20th century the residents of Fort Bragg would throw all of their trash over the cliffs into the ocean.  After a while you can imagine the mess this practice made.  There were clean up and restoration efforts made in the 70's and 80's but the broken glass remained.  The sea did its work and turned the broken glass into sea glass.  There is an official Glass Beach in MacKerricher State Park where the actual trash dumping took place.  You are not supposed to collect glass from the state park.  However, thanks to human folly there are plenty of beaches with sea glass shores south of the state park and collecting is A-OK there.  We went to the unofficial Glass Beach--because I knew I wouldn't be able to restrain myself...or my children.  

The beach did not disappoint.  It was so cool!  

The beach we camped out on for the day had the best of all beach worlds: tide pools for checking out ocean life, sea glass for collecting, sandy beaches for playing and gigantic rocks for climbing.

While the big kids were building a sand castle a wave came up and ate Colter.  He was not happy in the least.  It took several "Mom and Colter selfies" to cheer him up.  

On the first day, Wyatt went up to use the port-a-potty up by the parking lot.  He got a little lost on the way back but came across an even cooler glass beach in his search for his family.  The next day we followed Wyatt's lead and checked out this amazing beach.

Will said: "It's not every day you get to bury your daughter in broken glass."

It is beautiful and depressing at the same time.  Can you imagine the amount of trash it took to create this?  And all this glass is here because the dumping happened in an era of glass and metal...instead of today's era of plastic and styrofoam.  Rarely does such gross human error turn into so much beauty.

I loved finding pieces with numbers or letters still visible and pieces that were rounded and threaded.  It was easy to imagine that these little pieces were once part of a large dish or bottle that sat in someone's home.  The milk glass pieces were by far my favorite--they maybe held food for a family dinner or flowers cut from a home garden.  It felt like holding personal history.  Do you think a resident ever imagined (as they flung their trash over the cliff side) "Some day a Mother, Father and their five children will be pawing through my garbage--picking up bits and pieces like they were nuggets of gold."  

What a trip!

Here is a picture taken from the car as we zoomed through roads that were literally curved like snakes.  You can see the road curving off to the left.  This was one of the few straight shots where I could get my phone out and snap a picture before throwing up.

Ugh, I feel sick looking at this picture.

Carsickness aside.  It was so fun and so cool.  Totally worth the drive--and the carsickness.

Father's day..

That William James Anderson sure is one amazing Dad.  We sure feel lucky to have him for our own.  Happy Father's Day!

And every-other-year we get to show him how grateful we are by serving him breakfast in bed.  On the off years we have early church and nobody has time to eat breakfast...forget about making it for someone still in bed.

End of the school year madness

We made it.  The 2013-2014 school year is over.  Lorien had a successful first year of middle school, Clare and Wyatt got another year of elementary school under their belts and Adell finished preschool.  The last month of school was crazy...the last two weeks were total madness.  Every day one kid or another had some end-of-the-school-year-activity.  I think I cooked dinner at home twice in those last two weeks.  We all need a vacation!

Wyatt's 4th grade teacher is retiring this year.  She was very strict...I loved her.  I am sad none of my other kids will get to have her for a teacher in the 4th grade.  He learned a lot from her and grew a lot as a student.  She was pretty fond of Wyatt.

We made it through open house at the elementary school.  It was nice to only have two classrooms to visit instead of the three we had to visit in years past.  

Lorien attended her first middle school dance (it was also the last dance of the year...which they had postponed due to some pranks at school).  

We made it through our first middle school open house.  It was very long...Lorien needed some extra credit in one of her classes and earned it by showing us every inch of her classroom.  

The orchestra concert...not to be confused with the district wide Strings Festival that happened five days earlier.  Lorien sure loves to play viola.

Adell "graduated" from preschool.  She had such a fantastic teacher in Miss Carrie.  Adell got to attend preschool at Miss Carrie's house with a small group of girls.  She had a blast and learned a lot.  In the fall, Adell will head to "transitional-Kindergarten".  

The elementary school band concert.  Lots of amazing music in my life these days!

And the very last day (today).  We made it.  Now, I am going to leave a package of Oreo cookies out on the kitchen table and sleep in tomorrow morning.  

Let summer begin!

Come on summer...

I am just going to lay it all out here.  My children are kind of awesome people.  They come up with the coolest games and when they get rolling then have so much fun together.  They are creative and smart and have above average good looks.  I am raising a troop of exceptional human beings.  Sure they fight (a lot) and complain (about everything).  They also are totally addicted to screen time and I indulge that habit way too much.  However, they are still pretty awesome people.  They are kind and very funny.  I like them.

Right now the middle three children are planning a performance of "Cinderella" the play starring and directed by Adell.  Even Wyatt is gathering costumes and throwing out ideas for Adell.  Colter is running around the house naked saying "Woo-hoo!" (he wants someone to open Wyatt's saxophone case so he can pretend to play the saxophone...or break it).  Lorien is reading quietly in her room.

I have been nagging them to get their homework and jobs done for almost four hours.  I do not think it is going to happen.  I think I am giving up right now.  I think my children are amazing people and the process of inventing, costuming, directing and preforming a play is more than homework enough!  Reading is great!  Nakedness and an interest in music is great!

I just want summer vacation to be here.  I am tired of schedules.  I am tired of busy work.  I am tired of all the running around.

I declare this will be a summer of nothingness.  We are going to chill out!  After all, my children are awesome people and we are only going to have 10 or so weeks to fully indulge in all that awesomeness.

I know there will be plenty of fights, plenty of complaints and I will say "no" all. the. time.  

Bring it on.

I am ready.

Smoke and Dirt

We made our second annual trek down to Big Sur this weekend.  Of course it was beautiful and loads of fun.  The kids ate their weight in marshmallows and played in the dirt.  Lorien stayed with our friends over at their campsite...so it was like we only had four kids.  Adell learned that she loves hot dogs "cooked the old-timey way with a little bit of black on them."  (Roasted over the fire on an actual stick until the hot dog is a little burnt.)  Colter learned how much fun it is to run towards a patch of poison oak and watch Mom or Dad come racing after him.  Wyatt invented a new game with all of his friends.  I think it was a version of cops and robbers but he was always riding by too fast on his bike to give me all of the details.  Clare made fairy houses and visited with her friends too.  On the last day Will and Wyatt took a major hike up Mount Manuel Trail.  It was 8 miles with a 3,400 foot vertical climb.  It was another fun trip, even if we will smell like campfire smoke for a week.  

Two Years Old

Poof.  

And just like that...my last baby is no longer a baby but a full-grown-toddler.  

Happy 2nd Birthday my Troublesome Truck.

New Years Resolutions

I do not make New Years resolutions.  I am not a goal oriented person.  I do appreciate accomplishment and see value in making and keeping goals...but I don't see a lot of value in it.  Call me uninspired or unmotivated.  

Anyway, this year I felt a little differently.  I wanted our children to see it was possible to read the Book of Mormon.  I wanted them to feel like that was an achievable goal.  As a kid, I always felt like getting through the whole Book of Mormon was nearly impossible.  My family read the scriptures off and on but I never remember finishing the whole thing until I was in college.  So way back in January Will and I decided it would be a good challenge to have with the kids.  At first I just wanted to set the goal of reading a couple of chapters every day.  Will had the idea (he is way more motivated by goals) to put down a specific deadline for when we would finish the Book of Mormon as a family.  The kids agreed and we set our goal: reading the whole Book of Mormon as a family by Colter's 2nd birthday (May 19th).  

It was pretty easy in the beginning.  We were all inspired and we were ahead of schedule for a while.  Then life happened and we got behind.  Then we caught up...then we were behind again...pretty typical stuff.  Colter's birthday was on Monday and with a couple of marathon reading days over the weekend we made our goal.  It was awesome to celebrate the success with the kids.  We all read the last verse out loud together.  

I am pretty proud of my little family.  Now we just need to keep reading...

Adell and Clare really were excited to have met our goal.  We took a bunch of pictures with my phone on a timer.  They weren't sure when to get their excited faces on...

I love to see the temple

Sometimes we meet at the temple for Stake Conference.  There is a large Stake Center on the temple grounds and our Stake is big enough to need the extra seats.  We packed a picnic lunch for afterwards and enjoyed some time walking around the temple.

Clare and the Beanstalk

Clare participated in the school play this spring.  She loved it.  I think we found her "thing" which is only troubling because I don't think I can be a stage-mom.

The kids put on a musical-comical version of "Jack and the Beanstalk".  Clare played a Castle Maid and a Garden Fairy.  She killed it.  She was the funniest, most articulate and pretties Castle Maid around.  She practiced her lines with me but didn't tell me she had a bunch of other lines (another girl was out or something and Clare doubled up to get the lines covered).  I was kind of worried at first that she was maybe saying someone else's lines by mistake...but no...she was just doing her job...perfectly.









Totally awesome iPhone photos!

We were all proud of her.  Keep on breaking a leg out there Clare.