The big vote

We (and by we I mean me of course) decided to let you all in on the naming of our new baby. We are in the serious countdown to full-term and delivery. We have several names we are tossing around and thought it would be fun to see what you thought. To the right you will see a list of a few of the top names. Feel free to share your opinion via a vote. In full disclosure the most popular vote may not become the actual winner as we as parents have enough votes between us to override you all.

Also, if there is a name you would like to suggest that is not on the list please feel free to leave a separate comment.

Karen Joy and her belly

Vacation

We got back yesterday from a little trip to North Carolina. We were able to spend time with many of our good friends and spend loads of time outdoors, at the lake, at the beach, in the mountains. We also spent many hours in the cramped car our energy kept at bay only by the constant reading of the newest Harry Potter book (we essentially read the entire thing out loud in the car as we travelled.) The movie above is of the girls sliding down the natural waterslide at Looking Glass Falls near Asheville, NC.

Although we had tons of fun visiting North Carolina's beautiful outdoors the main reason we made the drive was to go to the temple with our friends Eric and Peri Borries.

It was wonderful to be in the temple with them and to feel the peace that resides there. The Borries were kind enough to let us stay in their home (again) and from there we went boating on Falls Lake, lounging at Carolina Beach, hiking at Umstead State Park and visiting our many friends in the area.

We left Raleigh and drove to Asheville for the last half of the week. We enjoyed being in the mountains and driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Yesterday, we finally drove home. We finished Harry Potter and the last drop of gas in the car as we drove into our driveway in Cincinnati. I know we used the last drop of gas because when I got up to go to work this morning the gas tank was completely empty-luckily I had the gas can for the lawn mower or I would have had to push the car to the hospital.

Self pride and accomplishment

We have finished another school year; Emma flew threw 4th grade and Mary through 2nd. Miia graduated from Preschool and is anxiously awaiting riding the bus to Kindergarten with her sisters next fall.

On the last day of school the girls brought their report cards home. Both did very well so we decided to take them out to dinner to celebrate. Emma has been working all year to change her Science grade from a B to an A so that she could not only be on the Honor Roll but so she could have all As and get an "Excellence" gold sticker on her Honor Roll certificate. She finally accomplished this during the last term and we are very proud of her for her hard work.

Emma was telling us about a conversation she was having with a few of her friends during the day, before the report cards were handed out. One of her friends was telling her that if she got straight As her parents were getting her a Nintendo DS Lite. Another friend informed her that if he got strait As he could choose any gift he wanted up to $500. Shocked at the gifts her classmates were earning I asked her what she had told them she would be getting if she got straight As. Without hesitation she said, "Self-pride and accomplishment." Amazed, I asked her if she really said that. She said, "Yeah, well it's true".

I am not sure at moments like this where our girls come from but I am proud of them for what they do and what type of people they are developing into.

Road trip

For Memorial Day weekend my friend John invited us to visit his family in Milwuakee. So Friday afternoon we all piled into John's Suburban and hit the road for Wisconsin. We had as much fun travelling as you can with 3 little unmedicated girls in the back of a car (hint: Benadryl). We spent Saturday and Sunday in Milwaukee being hosted by John and his family. We had a tour of the city, enjoyed a Kite Festival, swam in Lake Michigan (well the girls swam anyway) and visited some great restaurants. We even found a new favorite custard shop, Kopp's Frozen Custard.

Monday we drove down to Chicago in the morning and spent the day visiting some of the sites there. We went to the The Art Institute of Chicago, Navy Pier and strolled along Michigan Avenue spending most of our time in the Lego and Hersheys stores.

We left Chicago Monday evening and just about made it back to Cincinnati when we ran out of gas. Luckily John's aunt and uncle came to our rescue. We rolled back into our driveway around midnight just in time to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep before work today. Sometimes vacations can be exhausting.

Surprise!!

Some of you guessed our little secret from my not so subtle post. We are going to have another baby!!! After a six year hiatus our little family is about to grow again. We shall see one more time if any of my y chromosomes are strong enough to beat out the x chromosomes and make us a boy. Considering the strong-willed girls that we have already made I am not counting on it. Luckily we make beautiful and happy girls and will be thrilled to have another if that is what happens. This time around we are going to wait until the birthday (due date November 4th) to find out the gender of the baby.

Karen is doing fairly well. A little bit sick but she tells me it is not so bad. I keep offering to find someone to write her a prescription for Zofran but she is too much of a trooper. I told her there should be some benefit to having a doctor husband, aside from the huge debt and having me work 80 hours a week but still she refused. The girls are so excited they can hardly handle it and the list of possible names for their new sibling grows each day.

Thank you for everyone who has already called with their congratulations. We, I am sure, will be calling for more advice and help as we feel like we are doing this again for the first time.

Do you know what I know??

An new baby

No, not that kind of baby! For a long time we have been talking about getting a dog. For a long time we thought the girls were not old enough to help care for a dog. A little over a year ago Mary got a hamster named Carrie. Despite me thinking that the little one would be dead or lost within a month she is still around. Mary has actually done a great job taking care of her. With the experiment of a small pet out of the way we moved into serious negotiations for a bigger one. We finally decided it was time.

So this weekend we went to The League for Animal Welfare and "interviewed" several dogs. We fell in love with the first one we played with, Carson. He is 4 months old and a beagle mix of some sort. He was very excited to see us. We loved a lot of things about him, his friendliness, his energy, his kisses, and especially his eyes. As you can see from his picture he has heterochromia, one blue eye and one brown eye. We looked at several other puppies but none were as perfect as Carson...so we took him home. Did I mention he is a boy...I am so happy to have another male in the Anderson home.

Mad Scientists

We went to our first science fair as a family this past weekend. Mary and her friend Abby decided to enter a project this year. Their question (which they came up with on their own) was "Which liquid in our house weighs the most and which weighs the least?" They hypothesized after looking at all of the liquids they could find that the corn syrup would be the heaviest and that water would be the lightest. So they measured an equal amount of each liquid and weighed them on a little scale. Sure enough the corn syrup was the heaviest. To their surprise however their milk weighed just a bit less than the water. It is unclear to me whether there was indeed a statistical significance between the weight of the corn syrup and the rest of the liquids (I think they were still working on their z-scores and p-values).

Regardless of their shakey statistical methods, they explained their project well to the three judges and were awarded a 1st-place blue ribbon for their efforts.

The remainder of the science fair (made up of first through sixth graders) was terribly interesting. There were at least 5 groups who studied the effects of mentos exploding when dropped in various bottles of carbonated sodas (something Borries kids likely did as youngsters), there were multiple "which carpet cleaner works the best?" projects, and several looking at the effect of different music styles on heart rate (punk rock seems to be the type that raises HR the most.) By far the most interesting project to me, however, was the one measuring the most likely first move in rock-paper-scissors based on sex and age. You will be interested to know that both younger and older males tend to lead (60% of the time) with a rock whereas the majority of females lead with either paper or scissors. Hopefully this helps the next time you are challenged to a game.

Hair adventures

So it started like this. You all know Miia: short, cute, full of energy, maybe a little bit stubborn at times. If you have forgotten who she is, here is a picture. See what I mean? Cute as abutton!

Mary, also very cute, had been asking for weeks to let her get her hair cut. Well she finally talked us into it so Karen was going to take her to the salon to get a trim. As little sisters often do Miia decided on the morning of the haircut that she wanted to be like her big sister and get a haircut too. Emma, who is a great big sister, offered to sacrifice some of her Friday morning and give Miia a trim, free of charge. Karen, one of the most thoughtful and trusting mothers in the world, agreed to let Emma work her magic. Just as Emma was setting up her beauty salon Karen got a phone call from a friend she hadn't talked to in some time. Those of you who know my cute wife know that she is a bit of a talker. Who knows how long she was on the phone, but when she actually got off she found her daughters in the bathroom, and one with about five inches less hair on the left side...

We have been trying to decide since that dreadful day who is more embarassed, Emma because she mangled her sister's hair, or Karen for not only letting her children play with scissors but for giving the go ahead to let them cut each others hair.

Anyway it was off to the salon for all three girls after "the incident" and $40 later the three of them have fashionable new hairdos. I think they look great and I always appreciate a story that gives me a good laugh. Thank goodness I have a wife and three girls who continually provide me these kind of stories.

On the third date of Christmas..plus a Christmas surprise

On the final adventure of the season Emma and I attended the Cincinnati Ballet's production of The Nutcracker. The ballet was performed in Music Hall which was decorated beautifully. Although this performance was far from as good as what Ballet West puts on it was still fun to hear some of our favorite music and for Emma to watch the ballerinas. I cannot believe how grown up Emma has become.

The Christmas dates were very fun for me this year. I think the girls really enjoyed them as well. However, they were long forgotten when the real Christmas surprise showed up on Christmas Eve. Nana and Grandpa had bought tickets to Cincinnati several months ago and we had kept it a secret from the girls. I picked them up from the airport on Sunday afternoon and dropped them off about a block from the house. I drove home and sent the kids out to the front yard to play. As soon as they spotted my parents, with my mom wearing a santa hat, walking down our street there was much screaming, running, and rejoicing.

It was nice to have my parents here for Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner and a very fun Christmas morning. We then spent a few days exploring Cincinnati, something we haven't had time to do since we moved here. We really do live in a pretty great city. You should all really come visit us and we will show you. We really are blessed to have great family and to live where we do.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. We miss you tons.

On the second date of Christmas...

Did I mention that we love Christmas? Mary and I attended a great performance of A Christmas Carol yesterday. It has been years since I have seen or read this play and I was particularly impressed with it this year. Maybe it was the amazing performace by the actor playing Scrooge. Maybe it was the fact that I got to share the experience with Mary. Maybe it was just that I was touched by the correlation of the message in the play to the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

My favorite part of this story is when Scrooge is taken by the Spirit of Christmases to Come to the graveyard. Upon a grave with the headstone that he finds is his own he pleads, in anguish, with the spirit to know whether the visions he has been shown are those that will indeed come to pass or whether they are things that may come true if he does not change his ways. One of my favorite quotes from the play is when Scrooge proclaims,

"Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only? Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!' The Spirit was immovable as ever.

So it is in our lives. What a blessing it is to have a testimony of the life, example and sacrifice of our Savior. How important a gift is that of His Atonement. No matter what mistakes we have made; No matter how far from the path we have strayed; He is always waiting with open arms to have us return to him, and because of his sacrifice we can be forgiven of those mistakes. The life we lead is the life we lead; if we are not where we want to be we have, with the help of Christ, the power to become who we want and need to become. Merry Christmas!

On the first date of Christmas...

We love Christmas at our house. We love the time we get to spend with our family and friends. We love the food. We love the music. We love the extra time we spend thinking about our Savior and serving others. We love the traditions we have grown up with and the ones we are creating.

I have tried for the past few years to spend time periodically with each of my girls on a "Daddy/Daughter" date. This year I decided to take the girls on special dates to Christamassy events. The first of these dates happened this weekend as Miia and I attended a special music concert at Cincinnati's Music Hall. Carolfest is a Christmas concert put on mainly by the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus, along with a few other groups. There was singing, dancing and even a couple of special guests (Santa Clause, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.) The Music Hall was decked in festive decorations and was beautiful.

As you can see by the photo my littlelist princess put on her nicest red velvet dress, got her hair curled by her Momma and was the cutest little one at the concert. Miia tired of the singing about an hour into the production. Luckily the young ballerinas swept onto the stage with one of the next couple of songs and saved the day. I love Christmas and love my girls.

A witch, a princess and a cow

We took a major step in the Halloween department this year. Our girls have always enjoyed dressing up, to be honest they would dress up almost every day of the year if they could. This year, however, was the first year they got really into trick-or-treating. Perhaps it was because we live in a real neighborhood this year (not that the University Village or our townhouse in Durham were not real neighborhoods) with houses and yards an tons of kids. People went out of their way to decorate their homes and set up their porches for little goblins to come by for candy. There was a yard decorated like a graveyard, two people who had built bonfires on their driveways, and even one guy dressed in a Harley-Davidson shirt and a long beard (costume or not??) who whispered that he had adult treats as well and showed me to a barrel full of Jello shots (of course I declined the offer.)

Mary and Emma ran from house to house and Miia tried with all of her might to keep up with her sisters despite her short little legs. It only took us an hour to canvas our neighborhood and by the end Emma and Mary had their bags so full that the straps had broken. Miia's basket was markedly smaller than her sister's bags so I ended up with half of her candy in the pockets of the cargo pants I was wearing. They had so much fun. I had so much fun watching them. It was a great Halloween.

The best Nana ever

This past month we had the first our first visit from Nana since we moved to Cincinnati. Obviously we hope this is the first of many visits as we absolutely love having her stop by. We hope that Grandpa Rocket sees fit to join her on some of her trips too. This time we got to do a little back-to-school shopping while she was here. We also visited the Cincinnati Zoo (pictured here). Our girls are very lucky to have a Nana that loves them, an spoils them, and their only complaint about our latest move to Ohio is that we did not decide to move to Utah so they could be spoiled on an more regular basis. Maybe next time...

Brothers

Last month we went home to Utah (on our way to Cincinnati :) ) to celebrate my brother Spencer's wedding. It was good to spend time with our families and especially good to spend time with Spencer's new wife, Laura, and her familly at wedding showers and wedding dinners and wedding receptions and wedding weddings. The girls were in heaven of course because a wedding transforms them into instant princesses. They got new dresses and shoes and even spent an entire afternoon at the Beauty School (courtesy of Melissa and her friends) having their hair and nails done.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was going out with my brothers the night before the wedding for a boys' night out. Althougth it was not as wild as some last hurrah nights before weddings may be, we had a good time playing pool and talking and laughing. What a blessing it is to have the brothers that I have. They are all a little bit different and are all examples to me in one way or another. Even though I enjoy living where we have chosen to live, one of the downsides is that I don't get to spend so much time with my brothers. I hope they all know how much I love them.

PS. I love Melissa too but she is not one of my brothers. She did, however, marry a great guy who I count as another brother.

Off we go

After several months, innumerable prayers, and just about daily scrambles to clean the house to make it presentable for showings, we accepted an offer to sale. It is fortunate for us as it happened the day before we pack up the moving truck and head to Cincinnati. We are very grateful for the chance to get this done before we start a new chapter in our lives. We have been imagining for the last few weeks how we would make it work should we have to sell the house from Cincinnati, most significantly how we would afford to pay two house payments for who knew how many months. Thank goodness for blessings and the hard work of Karen and the girls to keep our home in immaculate shape so that it was so impressive to our buyers.

This picture is of our celebratory dinner at Tomato Jake's after selling our home. Like I said tomorrow we pack up everything we own into a moving truck (in fact, to be completely accurate, we pack up everything we own into 16 feet of an ABF trailer). We will then drive ourselves to Cincinnati, catch a plane to Utah from Indianapolis (hundreds of dollars cheaper to fly five bodies to Salt Lake City than from "the Natti"). We will spend the next week in Utah for by brother Spencer's wedding to Laura. Then we will fly back to Indianapolis, drive to Cincinnati, and unload our truck. If you aren't confused enough yet it gets worse. We will be able to move our 16 feet of stuff into our new home on June 24th but will not be able to move ourselves in until July 1st (long story) so we will be staying with our good friends Dave and Michelle Hooper for a week. I guess it is appropriate that we won't get settled until July 1st as that is when my life and our lives will change significantly for the next three years. More to follow...

Memorial Day Weekend at Falls Lake

This weekend we went camping and boating with some of our friends at Falls Lake. The forecast for Friday night included severe thunderstorm warnings and the possibility of nickel-sized hail. When we arrived at the campsite the sky was clear and blue. Several families arrived and we made it half-way through dinner before the forecast proved true (at least part of it.) We spent the next hour or so running back and forth between the campsite and the van to hide from the rain. Eventually the rain went away and we got back to dinner and s'mores.

The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and headed to the beach. We spent most of the day at the beach and out on the lake. We are lucky to have such great friends to spend time with and to live in such a beautiful state. Soon we will have to say goodbye to both our friends and North Carolina...so sad for us.

Souvenirs

In getting our home ready to put on the market I was going through some of our things that were in storage and found a picture we had taken down some time ago. It is a painted picture of some old shoes hanging on a nail on the side of an old shed. It is not a great picture. It looks like something you might find someone trying to sell at a flea market. I purchased the picture years ago on one of the last days of my mission in Alabama. I was going through this phase where I was trying to collect everything I could to remind me of my mission. I knew I may never make it back to Alabama and I did not want to let go or forget the experiences and relationships I had there. So I bought things. This picture, although not amazing or even very good, will always remind me of my mission.

This picture made me realize that I am currently going through another phase of collecting and hoarding as we prepare to move to Cincinnati. We have really enjoyed our time here in North Carolina and I know we will miss it. So if you come to our house in the future don't be surprised if you see a stained glass window of a lighthouse on the beach, a bunch of Tar Heel paraphernalia, or coffee-table books about North Carolina. We are excited to move on but sad to leave this place we have come to love.

My first gig

Some of you know that a few months ago I started taking cello lessons. This is something that I have wanted to do for a long time and finally had the time and money, so I took the plunge. Learning something new like this as an adult is a unique experience that I think everyone should have. Getting my fingers to do what my brain wants them to do, or getting my brain to understand what my fingers should do to make pretty sounds come out of the cello is taxing.

My teacher, Phil, comes to my house two or three times a month and at the end of our 45 minute sessions I am physically and mentally exhausted. But I am progressing. I am learning by way of the Suzuki method: I memorize short songs without having learned to read music. This way I can learn proper techniques of playing without the additional strain of translating notes on the page into notes on the cello. So I can play a bunch of short songs; most are big hits like Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Lightly Row, and Song of the Wind. Additionally, although I haven't confessed this to Phil, I have secretly been teaching myself some of my favorite hymns. I can sound out A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and several Christmas songs.

On to the title of this entry. In one of the cutest moments in the lives of my cutest girls (which is saying a lot as their days are completely filled with cuteness), the girls asked me to perform for them. You see they were having a funeral for one of their dolls. I am not sure the circumstances surrounding her death, I can only say that the next day she suspiciously was again alive but had a different name. The girls held a funeral for her and asked that I come and provide some music for the service. So in Mary and Miia's bedroom, at the funeral of the doll, I had my first gig.