New toys…

Chris has a new toy/ tool that I am playing with… a new computer.  It has a windows live writer that I am trying out. 

Although since all my photos are on the other computer I”m not sure it’s worth it…

Bill and Paula gave the kids rockets for Christmas and we have been waiting forever it seems to set them off together. Well today was the day! It got breezier than expected, so one challenge was to chase the rockets down after launch. This they did rather creatively!

The rockets were covering a pretty good distance and we were getting tired so...out came the 4 wheeler
No he did not ride with Alan like this, or Lacey for that matter!

Where have I been? Where is the summer going? The answer to both is, I have no idea!!! Each day comes and each day goes and I wonder, what happened? Sometimes it is filled with summer fun, friends and water. Other days it is just chores & gardening mixed with laziness. After the busyness of June, July's schedule seems sparse, but the days continue to rocket by. Chris just finished the last flooded field yesterday... that's got to be a wheat harvest record somewhere!

The answer to one of the questions listed above it, the laptop has been down since the 2nd week of summer. With 6 people and one computer, well the blog and my scrapbook board have suffered. Chris has been facebooking in the evening which is very different! That will change as August approaches! It has beena wierd farm year. I have been taking a Jessica Sprague class the last 2 weeks to learn Photoshop and that takes what computer time I get. Plus with the kids up until 9:30-10 each night, I just don't feel like blogging.

This may sound like complaining, I don't mean for it too, it's just the way it is!!! I hope to start posting some stories and pics of what we have been up too. Baseball photos and my photoshop experiments are listed at my Anderson Farms shutterfly site. That's even faster than blogging!
I'll be back...sometime!

Baseball season wraps up! The All Stars were in first place and undefeated when they faced the Medical Center team again, they lost. The next week they lost to the First Bank team. The heat was 100F so they practiced less and it showed with the younger ones who lost their batting ability quickly. Unfortunately the other teams did not seem to suffer so! Our boys came in 2nd which was hard esp for Hans who was really counting on that first. (Alan who saved the day in 2 games actually struck out every time up to bat the last 2 games) Sigh! Got a hitch in his swing I guess. Their coach was wonderful, I really appreciate the time she invested,

the boys had a very enjoyable season and 2nd is just pretty good! Hans as catcher below, Hans on first above!

alan had a couple of misses before he gets a hit to first...but he's out! RATS!Here are the boys after the last game with their 2nd place metals. They are both sporting new hair cuts and some hat head!

Happy 4th of July!

Here we are waiting for the parade to start. It is close to Mom and Dad A's house, so we always wander over with them. It was rather HOT at this point in the day!

This is what happens when you sit in Mom's chair...

Later we headed to the Tim and Brandy's for dinner and some fireworks...
Then we headed to the lake for the community firework display, Chris and I had fun with the camera and finally all our children could watch without complaining that it was too loud!

HARVEST!

Despite rain after rain, wheat harvest is finally underway. The guys got started Thursday the 18th but then got rained out Saturday with another 2 3/4 inches of rain. They were back at it Monday night (thanks to determination, heat and wind) and have been going strong. Well as strong as you can when you're dodging mud holes and "sticky" wheat. (evidently when the wind quits and the sun goes down it gets hard to cut). It's a strange harvest for me, Collin has only ventured out to the field 2x due to a wheat dust allergy that has gotten worse each year. He has no desire to start wheezing and coughing, so when he does go he stays in the pick up until every piece of machinery has come to a stop. Hans has been rather indifferent about harvest. Erin is in TX with Mike and Staci (you can see pics here). Alan has been riding with Chris some, but this year is very different then the years when they are all begging to go to the field. I'm the cook, so my job is to feed the crew 2x a day. (lucky them...)

baseball 0001

We had fun putting together a montage of photos and video clips from baseball games thus far. Erin has been the videographer and it's a bit bumpy, but she had fun doing it!

It was the 6th inning. The 2 undefeated little league teams were playing each other and it was tied 10 to 10. Our All Stars had been behind the whole game (miserably so), but managed to overtake the other team in the 4th inning. In the 5th inning, the other team advanced to 11:10, but our boys did not answer. The defense held them to 11 in the 6th and then it was our turn to bat. I do not remember all the details, but we had a boy on 1st and 2 outs. Caleb Lambert was up to bat, it took several tries and a few balls but he finally smacked the daylights out of the ball and got to first, bringing another boy home. Tied again 11 to 11. I looked over and gulped....
Alan was up to bat. I could not believe it!!!!!!!!!!! He has been hitting well all season, but it's still just his first year and he is not beyond striking out and that would be the game. Chris was the 3rd base coach and he turned his hat to the rally position.

Swing and a miss Strike 1

Swing and a miss Strike 2

Swing and a miss...low ball

Swing and a HIT!!!!! Alan makes it to first and the other boy home....beating a team that had overpowered them most of the game. Yeah All Stars!

Here are some highlights: Hans is a great hitter and he had a line drive he almost caught, even laid out for it, but he was at least able to tip it a bit.Our catcher was very intent on keeping the other team from stealing in the 5th, crucial in keeping the score from creaping up.

Caleb scores the final run that wins the game 12:11! There are other kids that just did such a great job. Conan made several excellent throws from 3rd to 1st for the out and Jeremy snagged several hits as pitcher for the out at first. What a fun game! Great job guys!

vbs 09 0001R

Since I already worked with these photos a ton, I thought I'd just post the whole slideshow from VBS! Music is from Answers in Genesis: Operation Space. 2009

VBS is always so fun for the kids. Even our "older" kids enjoyed themselves. This year the theme was Operation Space: A Close Encounter with God's Word from http://www.answersingenesis.com/ Let's see if I can find some good "shots" of our kids amidst the tons of photos I took for the slideshow.

Bad mommy, I need to find the others. I don't have that many of my own kids!!!

Mom and Dad A's 50th

We went to CO for a reception at the Holly Hills church in Aurora.

Bruce arranged for family members to sing and play music for mom and dad which I think they thoroughly enjoyed!

Erin signed and the boys sang, Lord I Lift Your Name On High

The Quartet from 50 years ago comes together for an encore!

It was fun for me to meet some of the people my in laws have been talking about for the 15 years I have been part of this family! There were a lot of nice memories made!

Free to good home in the central KS area...

I have a new share site from shutterfly where I make my photo books and get some of my pictures printed. This way if I have pictures anyone wants you can just order them from shutterfly yourself. And if in the future I decide to start trying to "sell" my photos it can be upgraded to a pro site. I'm a ways from that yet!
However, here it is:
http://andersonfarms.shutterfly.com
I have the 50th Wedding photos there and some of the school events like track and field day for the 5th and 6th graders and the kindy zoo trip. Let me know what you think!

I made it, we made it... whew.
It was back in February that Brandy, our pastor's wife, asked me to help direct VBS. I said yes, but was reluctant because i have done this 2x and it is definitely outside of my gifting. Remembering details... thinking of all the little things that need taken care of...admin type things... those aren't my gift. Yet, God does not only call us to use our, "this comes easily for me" gifts and I love working with Brandy so... I said yes, of course!

It was in March that we started planning Mom and Dad A's 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration to be held in Colorado. Chris' older brother Bruce and his family would go from PA to CO and then back to KS for 2 weeks. It was the mid-March when we decided to hold a reception in KS as well for mom and dad's 50...

It was at lunch with Bruce and Karen over spring break when I realized all 3 of those things were going to happen at the same time! I felt a sense of dread begin but decided that we could handle it as long as we planned ahead and were ready!

In early May the kids chose their summer sports: Alan and Hans chose baseball and Collin wanted to sign up for Summer Basketball, both to start June 1 (same week as VBS). It was the last day of school when we got the notice that football camp was the same week as VBS.

Are you tired of reading yet? This is more for me than anyone else because the last 3 weeks are a blur to me. I was in charge of Erin's last day of school party. That afternoon Collin had a party to go to, Hans had piano and he and Alan had baseball! Got home at dinnertime, finished laundry and planned to pack in the morning. At 10 the next morning we leave for CO arrive in Denver at 5 for dinner with Jen and Simon. Off to the church to decorate and practice music. Back to Trish and Aarons. The weekend is lots of fun, but very fast and we leave Denver at 3:30 on Sunday arriving home at 11:30 pm, so Chris could work Monday. We had a week to prepare for VBS and the KS 50th Wedding anniversary.

Now that it is June 8th I can sigh, I just don't know why it all has to happen at the same time. It's hard to enjoy things when they come so quickly. There were days last week when we had baseball, football and basketball in the same day after VBS. We always say that we don't want the kids to get over busy, that we don't want them to be going from one activity to then next. Well, we get to eat more words because on Wednesday last week Collin went to football camp for 2 hours and then straight to a double header basketball game :o) Ahhh youth! I am thankful that God has gotten us through and kept us well. Seeing all the youth's faces at VBS always makes the work worth it. And the helpers! We thought we might be short on helpers, but we ended up having a few extras to help with Tshirts and fill in during absences. God is faithful!
I'll upload photos throughout the day! I'm done rambling...

I am so far behind, I don't know where to start... and I have so many things I should be doing that I should not be doing this!!! Yet, I'm terribly blue today and in the hopes of lifting my spirits I am going to take some time to remind myself of the neat things we have done lately!

I started this post last week, let's see if I can finish it.

The 5-6th grade Track and Field Day was so cold and rainy! Erin did the long jump and Collin did the softball throw (got _______) Then they both ran the 400 and then a relay. Erin thinks she may want to try track next year as she enjoyed it. They have a middle school track team called Striders, but this year practice conflicted with too many other things, so we did not sign up.

Here we go!!!

Erin and I are off on the "Ididaprob" the SGS version of the Idarod, the Alaskan dog sled race. Students ride 3-4 miles, do math problems as a team and then ride on to the next check point for more problems. In all we rode 12 miles, our group did so well, I could not have been prouder of them! They were to operate as a team and they did!

One student struggled with a bike too short for him and another team member swapped bikes. One had trouble keeping up and the others waited and encouraged. They worked well together as a team on the problems and came in 2 overall!

It was a rather windy day for the ride so the roads to the south and west were hard!!! Those were first so once we got turned around it was much better!!! Way to go Erin!

The Mom Song with lyrics

Ok I posted this link last year, but now it has lyrics!!!
The one and only Mom song...priceless!!!!!

If you give a mom a muffin,
She’ll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
She’ll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her 3 year old.
She’ll wipe it up.
Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She’ll remember the she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She’ll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.
Bumping into the freezer will remind her that she has
to plan dinner for tonight.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She will look for her cookbook (101 things to make with hamburger),
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow,
She will look for her checkbook.
The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped
Out by her 2 year old.
She’ll smell something funny.
She’ll change the 2 year old.
While she is changing the 2 year old, the phone will ring.
Her four year old will answer it and hang up.
She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to
Come for coffee on Friday.

Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going
To have a cup.

She will pour herself some.
And chances are
If she has a cup of coffee…

Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

It never rains but it pours...

We are so blessed, so very blessed. Overall God has not only blessed us but He has done so abundantly. I realize this and I am so thankful for it. I am also thankful I have a God that will come along side us when things are less than "peachy". This is one of those times...

We went from early December until I think April without any moisture worth mentioning, a trace maybe. It has rained consistently since corn planting season began. We had a dry spell for maybe a week when all the farmers scurried to get their ground sprayed and the corn in. Then the rains really started. April showers may mean May flowers, but April flooding means a mess. Many homes in Sterling have basements that are flooded and have been for several weeks now since it is ground water that can't go down. And it keeps raining. We had 2 days of spring like weather and awoke to thunderstorms in the night... 1.5 more inches.

I am thankfu that is was not 4-5 more inches. I am thankful that our basement is dry. However my prayers are with my husband and many others who desperately need to get some work done. Prayers for patience and perseverence and hope.

I want to use this blog to capture both the ups and downs of our life, more so now than in the past. On a brighter note, scroll down to the boy's k-4 spring program footage. Hans' has a solo.