100 Things I am Thankful For...

1 Ken
2 Nicole
3 Matthew
4 Robert
5 My Mom & Dad--Kent & Charlet Anderson
6 Wendi, Ryan, Heather, Garen, Adam, Gina & Kyle (Siblings)
7 Larry, Rhonda, Farrell, Andrea & Cassie (Sibling Spouses)
8 Devon, Brandon, Joshua, Zachary, Regann, Mayson, Harmon, Peyton, Nolahn, Alexa, Courtney, Mikaela, Kelsey, Caitlin, Mark, Hayden, & Lillie, + 1 more on the way (Sibling's Kids)
9 Grandpa & Norma
10 Eternal Marriage
11 My Scriptures
12 My Journal--all of them
13 Paint
14 My Digital Camara
15 Books
16 E-mail
17 Blogging
18 Facebook
19 Scrapbooking
20 Clothelines
21 Seatbelts
22 Crayons
23 Glasses (Spectacles)
24 Braces
25 Deadbolts
26 Showers
27 Tulips & Daffidills
28 Makeup
29 Blow Driers
30 Tornado Sirens
31 Ken's Family
32 Kansas Thunderstorms
33 Evergreen Trees
34 The Blue Mountain & The Cascades
35 Wasatch Front
36 Mt Hood, Mt St Helens & Mt Rainerr
37 Wicked, Mamma Mia, Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Phantom of the Opera on broadway. I LOVE BROADWAY!
38 The Melting Pot & Fondue
39 http://www.allrecipes.com/
40 Google
41 Windmill Farms
42 Temples
43 Bleach, Soft Scrub, Windex, Vinegar & Clorox Wipes
45 All Free & Clear, Downy Free & Clear & Stain Stick
46 Rubber Stamps--Stampin Up!
47 Rechargable Batteries
48 Finger Nail Polish with sparkles
49 Fabric
50 Sewing Machines
51 Pianos, Bands, Orchestras, MUSIC!!
52 Skechers
53 Freckles
54 Sun Block
55 MP3 Players
56 Swimming Pools
57 Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter
58 Beautiful Sunsets & Sunrises
59 Prayer & My Scriptures
60 Sudoku
61 My Seminary Teachers Leila Wilkins, Barbara Creed, Vickie Hotchkiss and Gene Drees (Sorry I was such a brat sometimes...most times)
62 Eye brow Waxing
63 Root Booster hair product
64 Cell Phones
65 Permanent Markers
66 Rainbows
67 Electricity, Hot Water, Natural Gas, Indoor Plumbing & Garbage Service
68 Curling Irons, Hair Straighteners, & Maximum Hold Hairspray
69 Joseph Smith, Gordon B. Hinckley & Thomas S. Monson
70 YW Leaders Pam Sommer, Maggie Olauson, Debra Jaekel, Sandra Strong, Jolene Greene, Connie Fry, Mary Vail, Jan Bales & Marsha Warner (Sorry I was a stinker)
71 8 Lane Interstates
72 Root Beer Floats made w/Mug Rootbeer
73 Febreeze
74 Turnpikes, specifically the Denver Turnpike
75 The Low Fuel Light
76 Microwaves
77 Antique and Thrift Stores
78 Road Maps/Atlas'
79 High Speed Internet
80 Address Labels
81 Family Home Evening, Family Scripture Study & Family Prayers
82 High/Lows at Dinner
83 George W. Bush
84 Hand Mixers, Pancake Griddles & Waffle Irons
85 Bishops Doug Kennedy, Reed Fry, Mark Vail, Howard Cornia, Wayne Sargent, Brian Goude, Keven Naylor, David Mansius, Dan Curtis, Craig Rust and Bob Sommer
86 Azteca Chicken Toquitos, Rice & Beans
87 Premeir & Cookie Lee Jewelry
88 The Post Office
89 Computers
90 Swiffers & Vaccums
91 Meridian Idaho, Boise Idaho, Dundee Oregon, McMinnville Oregon, Bremerton Washington, Silverdale Washington, Provo Utah, Orem Utah, Grandview Washington, Troutdale Oregon, Vancouver Washington, Larned Kansas & Great Bend Kansas
92 Playlist.com
93 Rainy Overcast Washington Days
94 Call Waiting, Caller ID & Unlimited Long Distance
95 Deadbolts
96 The troups in the Middle East
97 Calendars
98 G2 Pens
99 Double Stick Tape, Duct Tape, Electrical Tape, Glue Guns, Hammer & Nails
100 Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas & Independence Day

What do you call this game?

Seriously, what would you call this game? Is it play with the cats or kill th cats? COMMENT please!!

Speedbump came back...

UG!!

Is there really anything else that needs to be added? He was waiting outside by the garage when we woke up on sunday morning. I guess he won't end up being a speedbump after all.

Something I never thought I'd say...

I own a cat. UG!!!

Okay, so we have just moved to Great Bend, Kansas. We live right on the edge of town, about 1 block from a big horse farm. That farm has field mice. We do too. I saw mouse droppings in our garage. We set up the traps and talked to the neighbors about this problem. It is something that comes with living so close to the farm. So after much thinking, I came up with the idea of getting a mouser. After I decided this, it took me almost thirty minutes to get the sentence "I think we should get a mouser" out of my mouth. Ken was surprised too. For those of you who don't know me very well, I HATE CATS. Yes, hate is a strong word, and I feel confident in using it in that sentence.

Anyway, I called my friend Donna who lives in Burdette, and she said she has 9 kittens and said we could come and take our pick for free. The price was right, so off to Burdette we went this morning.

When we got there, the kittens were really small and scared and I thought Nicole had died and gone to heaven, she LOVES the little fur balls. We let each of the kids pick a kitten and threw a third one in the box for good measure. That way if an owl got hungry, we had a spare. My only stipulation was they had to be girls because I didn't want my boy cats to run off impregnating the neighborhood.

After 20 minutes of picking cats, we had successfully secured 3 female kittens. Matthew held his all the way from Burdette, I pulled over between Burdette and Larned and Ken got Nicole's out of the box and she held her's. The last one was hissing at Ken, so he left it in the box. Once it found out it was all alone, Ken got it out and held it.

As we were discussing names, Matthew's naming process went like this...I think her name is Linda. (I tried not to laugh) Later it went to Molly, then Carley. It's name is Baylee. Nicole's went like this...(the night before, her name is Grace.) When we got there, she was calling out the name Grace and the one that came to her, got the name. Then it ran away. We found her another cat, and on the way home, her name was still Grace. Then she changed it to Miss Piggy, Pumpkin Pie and finally Zoey. The third cat was up to Ken and I to name it. We talked over names such as Door Knob, Mailbox, Trochar (an embalming too used to asperate dead bodies) and finally we named it Speed Bump.

When we got home, I ran in and got little ribbons to tie around their necks, so we could tell which one was which. Speed Bump got a yellow ribbon, Baylee got an orange, and Zoey's was too small, so she didn't get one. We could tell them all apart though. It was time to put them in the garage to get used to our surrounding and Speed Bump started clawing me. I turned to Ken for help and he looked at her, and said, that cat is a boy! BLASTED!! We got them thru our gate and I set HIM down for a second, and the dang thing jumped thru the fence, ran thru the neighbors pumpkin patch and to the horse field, never to be seen again. Sianara little bratty boy cat!

Now we have Baylee and Zoey as mousers. Ken made the comment that maybe we would see Speed Bump in the rode sometimes, I don't really care either way. I'm just thankful for the insight to grab the spare! One of the kids could have been really sad right now, if Speed Bump was one of the first 2 cats picked.

For those of you that enjoy furry little felines, here is a picture of the two that stuck around. Zoey is on top, and Baylee below. You can kind of see Baylee's orange ribbon.

A funny little math joke

I LOVE MATH! I was watching "Ace of Cakes" on the food network, one of my favorite shows and they were making a cake that looked like a scientific calulator. The girl making the cake asked this joke...

"Why didn't Trigonometry get the apartment he wanted? Because Tangent wouldn't cosine!" ha ha ha (I'm smiling at it again right now as I type it)

Okay, so those of you who don't care about math or think that Trig belongs in outer darkness, sorry. But for those of you like my me and my Dad and a few others I know read this, I hope you liked it. :)

1 Reason not to leave Ken home alone for a month...

Meet "Aminal". He's a Cockapoo. After coming to a family agreement that a dog was not good for our family, we got rid of our dog, Cooper. IN JUNE! We come home from Washington, and the kids learn that their Dad has purchased another dog. Of course the kids are extatic. I will say that he is already 10 times more obedient than Cooper ever was. The family really loves him, and he already bosses/herds the kids so I guess Ken chose well. Yes, his name is Amimal.

Goodbye Larned

We are offically out of the house in Larned as of today. I'm glad that we only have one place again, but I'm really going to miss that house. Ken and I have lived in 10 different homes since we got married and that was my favorite. I got the rest of the cleaning done this morning.

Now I have the pleasure of unpacking all our stuff and trying to make some sense of it. I was never appreciative of my Mom being able to move a family of 10, sometimes with out my Dad available, with what looked like little effort. She always appeared to know where everything went too. Now I can't even fathom it! I want to call her and ask where I can put my fabric or ask where I'm going to put the Christmas Tree this Winter. Luckily she'll be here in 2 short weeks, and although I'll have a place for my fabric by then, I hope she can help me with the Christmas Tree dilema.

I feel like a pro at moving a fam of 4, but it's stressful! Anyway, we are in the new house, everything is painted except the bathroom, and I'll hopefully do that this weekend, or at the beginning of next week. Definately before my Mom and Dad come into town. It's bad enough we have to look at the ugly bathroom. :)

I promise pictures shortly, I'm too tired to do it tonight! ttfn

What a mess!

We are living in lingo for now, all our stuff is in boxes, we have 2 houses, 1 is clean (the one we are leaving) and one is slowly getting cleaner. (the one in Great Bend) We were supposed to be in the house 3 days ago, but when we got there to sign papers, the house was TRASHED. So we have been cleaning, painting, dunging the house for the last 3 days. When we go to sleep tonight, everywall will have a fresh coat of beautiful, NON WHITE paint, thanks to the Sister Missionaries and my friend Jessica. We are cleaning carpets this weekend, and then hopefully on Tuesday we will move in. This is the reason I have not posted anything in a few days. I'll show before and after pictures in a couple weeks.

I LOVE EBAY!!

See this ugly little statue I got at Goodwill for $5.99? It sold on ebay for almost $30.00! Yeah! I think I'm just going to start buying junk and selling it to people online! Hooray for ebay and craigslist!

Kansas State Fair, Hutchinson Kansas

Today I was able to go on a field trip with Matthew's 4th grade class. It was really cool. I was in charge of 5 kids, including Matthew, and they were all well behaved.

We saw all the cows in their barn, we went into the "Pride of Kansas" building and the kids were able to try driving a combine, they did an electronic quiz with questions about different kinds of energy and natural products and the uses for some of the products. One question was How many basketballs can you make with the hide of 1 cow? The choices were 6, 12, 19 and 20. The answer is 12.

We also went to the commercial building and the kids got a ton of free loot. I've never seen such professional moochers in my life, it was fun. As a bonus, we ran into Ken there. He was there with a guy from another funeral home also perfecting his mooching skills.

Here are some pictures from our day.


You can't really have a fair in Kansas with out OZ showing up!


Matthew milking a fake cow. The boys decided it would be more fun to point the udders at each other and have a little water fight. It was funny but I had to tell them to stop.


Matthew petting a real cow.


They has the cab of a combine hooked up to a monitor so the kids could see what it was like to drive a combine in a straight line. All these kids need sobriety tests, it was funny. None of them could get it to go straight.


This is made of butter!!!

Matthew with the pumpkins.



Matthew and I. I especially like his hair. It's awesome.

All in all, it was a very fun day. It poured down rain the whole time, but we were only outside for 30% of the time. I'm almost dried from the day. I felt bad for the kids with shoes that didn't protect their feet. For this reason, I'm an advocate of Skechers. Matthew and I both got back to G.B. with dry feet. Hooray for that.

Where were you on September 11, 2001

7 years ago today, I was a pregnant stay at home mom with a 2 & 3 year old. Ken has just had emergency surgery the week before and this was his first day back to school and work. Our morning routine was breakfast, baths, and then a movie. (I know that isn't very productive, we've improved since those days.) Anyway, the movie for the morning would be Tarzan. I rarely turned the TV on for my own watching pleasure, so when I realized the movie needed rewinding, I switched to regular TV while it rewound.

At that point in my life I wasn't really interested in history. On the TV was a picture of the Pentagon, after it was damaged. I thought it was some history show because I had the volume turned down and didn't listen to the comentary. As soon as the movie was rewound, we watched Tarzan.

A couple of hours later, Ken came home from work early, he wasn't feeling well. As soon as he walked in the door he asked me if I heard happened in NYC, to the Pentagon and in PA. I told him I didn't know and he informed me of the whole thing.

At the moment I felt sick to my stomach for not caring about the history of our country, or the VERY current events. I felt scared because we had 2 small children and one on the way. All of the sudden I wasn't so sure that I was ready to have children and raise them in this world. It's a good thing my doubts started after it was too late to turn back.

I found a tribute on you tube that I think is lovely. I'm not sure how to put it right onto this post, but if you get a moment, click on this link and take 5 minutes to remember that tragic day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZV2L0EM08I

Ken

After my post yesterday, I realized alot of things ARE blog worthy! Ken is by far the most blog worthy person in my life right now. Here are some videos from our trip to Utah/Washington. He went with us the first day and at around 14 hours, he was producing some great stuff. You may want to check our second blog, http://apicisworth1000words.blogspot.com/ if you want to see his dance that goes along with Chiquita Banana...Enjoy!

This and That...

Although life is busy right now because we are moving next week, it seems like we have nothing "blog worthy" going on. So I'll just tell you what has been going on and then share some funny pictures that don't relate to my stories! Welcome to my life.

Last night I went to Enrichment at the church. That is when all the ladies from church get together once a quarter, have dinner together and then discuss things that help us be better homemakers, teachers, women... Last night we learned about Pressure Cookers. It was awesome! The dinner we ate was all made in pressure cookers, even the dessert, and it was all delicious. I learned alot, including that I can make more than rice and mashed potatoes in my pressure cooker...who knew?! As a bonus, I was talking to Gloria Seifkes after the class, and telling her about my ancient pressure cooker that I got at a goodwill for $1.00, and she gave me one of her newer, safer ones! Thanks Gloria! What a surprise that was.

While I was in this class, Ken and Ben Draper were the priesthood holders in the bulding and they were watching the kids. During the class, Ken told our kids if they would be good, we could go to ice cream after we left. Of course they were good with an offer like that, and after church we went to Braums with the Drapers and Jessica Zink. It was so fun! We just talked and laughed and enjoyed good ice cream. When Ken and I were on the way home with the kids, we talked about how fun that was and he commented that we haven't gone out with friends in a few years! We hope to be able to do it again sometime.

Now for a random picture....this is Ken and I at our Graduation in 2006. As I have been packing our house, I have come across old CDs of pictures that I have lacked to print out and scrapbook. This is one of those pics.

Nicole came home from school on Monday and announced that she was selected to be a part of the Great Bend School District Youth Choir. Last week she had a 5 minute audition with come of the music teachers. They had her sing scales, a couple of popular songs, and tested her to see if she knew any of her notes. (which she does) Then they had her sing the same songs again and tried to mess her up, but she kept going. Her determination paid off, and she is now in the choir. She is very excited and so are we. Be assured that when they perform in December, there will be a post with video.

Now another random picture...this is Nicole and Matthew 2 or 3 years ago playing on our washer and dryer when we lived in the apt. in Troutdale. I remember this day very clearly. I told Nicole to unload the dishwasher and Matthew to rotate the laundry while I was going through old clothes. I didn't hear work in the kitchen and I hadn't seen a new load of laundry in a little while, so I went to find them and here they were...funny little kids. I just took the picture, told them to finish their game and then get their jobs done. How often do you get to play games in a laundry closet. haha

Ironically, this picture might now be as random as I originally thought! Take note of the lovely washer that Nicole is sitting on. The blasted thing died last week!! Ken and I are the proud owners of a brand new set. We didn't get anything fancy, but we sure love the new ones. The capacity is a 1 1/2 times bigger than the old ones, so I got all the laundry for the week done in 5 loads instead of 8. That was good news. The other good news is Nicole LOVES doing the laundry right now because of the new set.

Random picture #3...One day I was checking my email and Matthew was trying to get my attention. He was saying, "Hey Mom, look at me! Take my picture. When I turned to him, there he was smiling, and hurting my face because I didn't know how that could possibly feel good... For fun, it will probably show up on my other blog too, because this picture is truly worth 1000 words!

As for another news at the Cheney house, We are thankful for all of our friends and family. We love all of you very much and hope that you are all doing well. Thanks for reading my blog.

Last random picture is actually a video. 3 years ago at Christmas Ken, Matthew and our friend Kevin were talking about how hard it is to eat 10 saltine crackers in 1 minute. There are actually world wide competitions to accomplish this. So we decided to try it ourselves. This video is full of alot of giggling and cracker crumbs flying, but I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. I watched it this morning, and I laughed as hard as I did the day I videoed for the first time. My favorite part is at 1:17 when Kevin spits cracker crumbs all over my Mom's kitchen floor. Luckily she was in her bedroom when we did this.

We are Moving...

It is finally official. We are moving to G.B. in 3 weeks. I am going to reserve the truck for 9-23 and we will get it all done in one day. I will be done packing by the time the Elder's Quorum shows up and we can load and unload the same day.

We get the house on the 15th and I'm going in to before we take our stuff so I can paint. Something about a house full of off-white walls is really depressing to me.

So that is the only news I have to share. It feels like life has stopped since we got back from Washington and them school started. We are just too busy and I know all of you are too.

I'll keep you posted if anything fun happens. Don't hold your breath though. :)