The Hanson Crew

I know there are many crazy parents out there who love to get their children excited when they are young about their alma mater. Neither one of us were remotely proud of the colleges we graduated from, especially since neither were our first choice when we left high school. Since we are spending an enormous amount of money for all four of our children to attend private school from preschool until 12th grade (about $150,000), we are praying for some kind of financial assistance when they graduate (scholarships, grants, donations, something!). We were so excited this month when we heard about a new college and seminary opening in Minnesota this fall. The Bethlehem College and Seminary , founded by the Bethlehem Institute, offers the values and classes we would pray our children would look for coming out of Faith Christian Academy. And while they are away at college, they would be able to attend an awesome church, Bethlehem Baptist Church , and of course be in driving distance home! So ne

These are really good and really easy. A few friends have asked for the recipe so I am posting it on here for them...Enjoy! Mix the following together in a bowl and melt in the microwave: 3/4 cup peanut butter 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup corn syrup 1 tbsp butter Stir in 1 tsp of vanilla and then add the following cereals: 2 cups cornflakes 1 cup rice crispies Stir together and spread in a lightly buttered 8" square pan. Melt 1 1/2 cups of choc chips and spread over the top. Refrigerate until the choc is set.

We put more vinyl sticky tiles down during our "house makeover" this past week in the hall bathroom. The best news - total price under $20 ($15 for the tiles and $3 for new quarter round). Since the old floor was in good shape other than fading, we could put it over that which made the project only take about 2 hours :) I did this one alone because of the space limitations and all the cutting. Here are a couple before and afters...

Our friends, the Knorrs , got us interested in Mark Driscoll awhile back and they shared his interview on Nightline with us yesterday. We got to see him in person this past year at the Desiring God conference. He is a fellow evangelical Calvinist and is not afraid to share Gods Word. If you have 7 minutes, we recommend watching his interview . He is "edgy" even among fellow believers, but knows the truth and has reformed doctrine. Enjoy the interview :)

After putting in some carpet in Ashlyn's dollhouse, she was excited to start some of the minor details...a checker board. She made it and put it on a game table in the bedroom. We are on a hunt at Thrift Stores for living room furniture and other details that will make the house complete. It has been a fun project so far...

So a group of fun friends threw my friend Allison a surprise High School Musical Party for her birthday this weekend. It was a blast! We all wore High School Musical apparel and fun high school stuff ( Letterman jackets, leggings and jean skirts, etc). We hung out at a pizza dive and talked for a long time. I am sure thankful for all these friends God have brought into my life...the next party in February - an 80s theme....double socks, aqua net hair dos, shirts tied on the side, and much more! Oh and roller skating!! We can't wait! The birthday girl with the party planner all decked out! Cari and Norma whose kids cracked up when they told them what they were wearing! Sara, a very pregnant Lisa and me wearing a tangled Gabriella wig! Sandra and Lisa listening to Allison acting out Sharpay (her wig)!!

This work day could make a pretty funny Hanson story to tell in person...it was a LONG day with a lot of unexpected frustration. The old tiles were bad enough that we did not think the new tiles should go on top of so we had to scrape them all off....some common expressions of frustrations from the 4 hard workers included "oops," "uh-oh," "um, come over here quick!", "this could very well be what a speck of hell feels like!", "I can't feel my fingers" "Does this sticky stuff come off!", "are we done yet?", "my fingers are bleeding", "Jonathan is stuck again", "I give up!"... and so on... Here is a pick of the floor before...faded in some place and coming up in some areas... Progress! You can see the old floor we covered up a couple years ago - it was awful... The finished product and all for a little under $200... HGTV would be proud I think.

Jonathan on our new kitchen floor

Sorry I have really been bad about blogging this past week (both writing and reading). I am not sure where the time has really gone. I have some fun pics I need to upload from my camera to put on here from the past week too, but I thought I would write something really fast about what has been going on here. Here is a short synopsis... 1. We started staging for our house to go on the market. That means we have re-arranged some furniture, decluttered some toys and stuff laying out we don't actually use/need anymore, and really emptied out every ones closet. This is the kind of stuff I actually enjoy doing so started with the fun stuff! 2. We got a few different bids about our siding, roof, and a couple windows needing replaced. We found out today that we really shouldn't paint the outside of our house until late March because of the weather...so we might not actually list it until April now which is a small bummer, but much more exciting to think about not doing it in the middl

So I am not sure if having 4 children and being on a tight Dave Ramsey budget qualifies me to officially call Wal-mart my second home...but we just found out they are building one in Kearney! Our closest Wal-mart is about 12 minutes from our house and now it will be 2! This is very exciting in case our house never sells and we live here forever. This would definitely be a selling point when looking at our house soon, at least if a small family buys it, and a great help to the market up here in Kearney. We'll keep you posted on progress with the house stuff soon...a lot is underway (hence, the lack of blog posts lately) and we have a March goal for putting it on the market!

better luck next time...

The boys and I sure found some great deals yesterday! Ashlyn's school was one of the very few still open for the holiday, but Joshua's was closed. So we headed out early to meet some friends at a mall play area for while. After we burned off some little boy energy, we headed to Hy-vee (a grocery store here) to pick up a couple things for dinners this week. To our amazement there was an awesome one-day sale going on. We got tons of great (mainly snack) food items for really cheap. Then we headed to our favorite thrift store (Maj-r-Thrift) to get Joshua some more church pants. Once again, a huge Martin Luther King sale - 30-50% off everything. I got some great Old Navy pants for $1.50 and Joshua got a nice church sweater (w/ tag still on), dress shoes, and pants for $4. It was quite the bargain! We then proceeded to the Red Box for our 2 free movies (we figured out that as long as you use different credit cards each time, that Monday promo code can be used multiple time

Ashlyn bought this cute pajama outfit this week for Ruthie with some Christmas money she had. Target has a doll collection called, Our Generation Doll, that seems to be an American Girl knock off. So all the outfits and accessories will work for her Ruthie doll. This outfit was only $10.99, compared to the $30 American Girl pajama set we saw in her catalog. Ashlyn loved that is comes with a sleep mask that matches hers. We are going to be buying more of these outfits and stuff at Target going forward!

So last night a local radio station was offering a Girls Night Out Movie Night to see Bride Wars for $5 and with free popcorn. Nine of us from my Monday night bible study went together. It was really cute and a fun night out. I am recommending this one to all my lady friends...go see it with a friend cause your men won't like it much!

So in preparation for his appointment today, I really talked about how cool glasses are and got him excited. He was a little more willing to get out of the car when we got there too after dreading this appointment the last couple days. He did great with the computerized testing, the picture testing and even got his eyes dilated (the only hard part). We were very excited when the doctor said he did not need glasses because we both knew how many pairs of glasses we would need to replace in a year if they belonged to our active Caleb. Funny enough, Caleb was really sad and kept saying "I want to have glasses!" The receptionist gave him the cool dilation sun glasses when we were leaving which seemed to lift his spirits a lot (until he broke them in the car coming home). He will need another eye exam before kindergarten to check if the small far sightedness he does have corrects itself (which usually happens at this age). So here is our cute Caleb in his new glasses...

Today Caleb is going to the pediatric eye doctor to get his eyes re-tested for glasses. He did not pass his well visit eye exam a couple months ago and they think he might be far sighted (like John). John has wore glasses since he was 3 so every time our kids gets about this age, we both get nervous about them needing glasses. So far the other kids have passes with flying colors and not needed them. Caleb is not at all excited about getting glasses, but says if he has to then he wants to match daddy! Did you notice we now have two favorite puppy dogs in the picture - meet Betsy and Puppy Dog (formerly Baba). We'll keep you posted after his appointment today...

Ashlyn and Joshua are clearly like their mother in many ways. The first obvious thing I have noticed about them is they have to stay busy. They need to know what to do next when they are done with something or will get bored easily. John and Caleb do not have this problem at all and are very content doing "nothing" when there is a bunch of stuff "to do" or nothing planned. Ashlyn has really become list-oriented lately too, especially with school. If I give her a list of subjects and assignments to do, she will quickly go down the list and get them all done fast (and she loved crossing them off like me when she is done!). If I tell her to pick and choose her worksheets or subject order, she feels overwhelmed (also like me) and it usually takes her longer to finish everything. So after we talked about our 2009 goals we listed on this blog a week ago, she quickly got to work on her small list. And you guessed it, she is more than half way done already. She read all h

"When daddy makes this grill cheese he does it a little gooder. It's crunchier or something. But yours is still good mommy"

wow. all I can say is that the first 4 hours of this crazy day was awesome!!! We look forward to next Monday and realize now how hard this TV thing is going to be...we just can't wait for the DVDs this time. We already have some guesses on what will happen next, which I'm sure will include some surprises...if you gave it a try, let us know with a comment. wow.

Yesterday we sat down with a realtor friend and talked about the possibility of selling our house this year. We made a small list of repairs that will need to be done before we list the house and it looks like we are moving forward. The two big repairs were not a surprise, siding and a roof. We already have a claim filed on the roof, but we need to get it fixed still with the insurance money we have. She advised us against the vinyl siding we were going to do and told us to put on new wood siding instead with a fresh coat of paint. This will save us about $4,000. The third big repair was replacing a window in the basement that has a crack in it. Once we make these repairs, our friend is coming back to go over closet storage and taking down a few personal family photos (we have a variety of those to choose from) and then I think we are going to throw a sign out. We are not sure if it will sell quick or not in this market, but are excited to try. Our neighborhood (minus the house next do

tonight i went to Dannys birthday party and i had a good time, so i got some neat toys and did lots of fun stuff like jump and eat cake. Danny opened his presents and we had such a fun birthday party - i went on a lot of rides, trampolines, and bumps. And i went on this thing where you have to go over balls and go over stairs and go down a big slide. oh, and i had green punch then it was really cold outside. i think we should all go to fun run again! oh, and i got even a goodie bag!

John and I are not big on New Year Resolutions. But a few different blogs I read have suggested to list "goals" for 2009. So I gathered the kids around the computer to list a couple for everyone here. I am sure John has a couple in his head... Ashlyn: Doing the crafts I haven't been able to do (like my dollhouse and painting sets) and to finish all of my Magic Tree House books. Joshua: Learn how to write his letters better (he's a lefty and his mom is having a really hard time teaching him) and learn to ride his bike without training wheels. Caleb: Learn all my letters and do better on my speech. I really want to go shopping with my puppy dog too! Jonathan (I helped him with these): Become a good talker and be less clingy to mommy. He should probably work on his eating habits this year too! Deanna: Continue to do my daily bible reading plan I have started that is chronological . I love reading it this way so far and hope to finish all 365 days this year. Learning cont

Over break, our crew started watching the original 4 Superman movies together. It was fun and neat to see how movies have really come along way since the 80s. The kids enjoyed them all and we are glad we bought them so we can do it again someday (the entire DVD collection was $9.99) and Superman Returns was $5 at Target a couple weeks ago. We are going to watch that one this weekend. Now we all have the theme music stuck in our heads!

So after about 4 months of 4H, Ashlyn and I have decided to throw the towel in. I really wanted to try to make it through the entire first year before we gave up, but we decided over break to stop half way. Ashlyn was the youngest clover in our group and the majority of the girls were in high school. She was very timid at the few meetings we attended, which is normal of Ashlyn, but she really did not enjoy going. I enjoyed the Christmas caroling outing and was about to lead the Photography class, which I was not sure how to really do. After much discussion, we are both very excited to work on our doll house we bought a while back at our own pace and to try another girls outing another time :) Those interested in 4H should defiantly do it because it seems to be very neat, but something kids might enjoy better with a friend or sibling I think. We might even give it another try when Joshua is old enough to do it with her so she would enjoy the meetings more... I haven't given you all

So we spent the second half of our vacation with a bug that has been going around and it seems the baby is the worse now. The older two kids are better and off to school today, but the two younger ones are left with a nasty cough and runny nose. I hear this bug stays around for about 2 weeks so we are hanging tough with the Triaminic and Motrin for now. The poor little guy starts hacking so bad that he gagged himself today. Thankfully the fever is gone and the cough is the worst part of it. We hope it all ends soon and we can go back into the nursery (we have missed the past 2 weeks just to be safe)! Man, I can't believe our family was actually sick both on Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!

having fun in their "tent"

Here are a few pics of our new laundry room...the closet is done, the trim is up around the doors and the floor and it is painted a tan color. Although it definitely looks homemade, we are very excited about the way it turned out. And it clearly is better than the cement floor, half drywalled room, furnace/water heater displayed, and stud ceiling we moved in with. I think I am in this room more than I wish to say and would love to actually enjoy being in it for a change (laundry is my least favorite chore!) I even found this cute sign at Gordman's the other day on clearance for $10 which helped with adding black to the room. I also found a cute black "Brothers" frame from Kohl's for $4 (since the boys call this bathroom theirs since it is attached to their bedroom) which replaced the ugly wood medicine cabinet we had behind the toilet. The Brothers frame is already hung, but I need to print a cute picture of the boys together for it - for now it has the Kohl's bro

A $50 gift card to Home Depot from my dad... replaced these old bi-fold closet doors in our master bedroom (they were broken enough to not get back on the track & flat) Here are the new doors which will soon be painted white (on track and with all the wood in place)

I am a fan of the Febreeze brand and usually use it when we need to. They have invented a bunch of new scents and most of them are pretty strong and favorable to my nose. So this past week when we were out bargain shopping with some Christmas money, John and I found the best smelling linen spray ever at Kohl's. It was half off so around $5 and comes in a few different scents. Our favorite was the Italian Linen scent. We sprayed our towels and sheets and it is awesome! If you are into wonderful smelling linens, towels, floors, or anything else that requires a spray, check it out!