Swiper, NO Swiping!!

Does anyone else see the similarities between these two photos? Jenna loves to swipe things from people. She has a little corner in her room (between a bookshelf and her little kitchen) where she stashes things. We'll find all kinds of things there: jars of jam, packages of ham, Kristen's makeup/jewelry, my ipod, etc. Any time we can't find something, we go and check the stash. This picture shows someone's computer games, my lotion, someone's gift bag of candy from a friend, Kristen's ball (along with 2 of Jenna's), Jon's scissors, the family's cup of candy canes, etc. Oh! And I just noticed that there's a little pile of ornament strings that she apparently cut off. Hmmm...I guess that's what Daddy's scissors were for. What a silly girl! I sometimes seriously wish I could say "Jenna, no swiping!" and she'd say, "Oh, man!" and leave it alone. But it IS kind of cute....Sometimes....

Christmas 2009

We had a very nice Christmas. We were able to go visit family on the 23rd--right after the kids got out of school--and we came home on Christmas Eve night. My grandma always has a Christmas Eve party--dinner and white elephant gifts--and we didn't think we would be able to stay long enough this year to make it, but it worked out. We like to track Santa on www.noradsanta.org and the kids (and my mom) had a lot of fun with that this year. We sang songs on the way home and that made Jenna mad. She kept threatening us--if we didn't quit singing and make it quiet, we wouldn't get any presents. I've got to get a picture of her "mad" face--it makes me laugh every time. We got home and opened new jammies and slippers (for the girls) and socks (for the boys) and frosted sugar cookies. We also read Christmas stories. The kids didn't sleep well the night before, so they were pretty good. We managed to hold the kids off from opening gifts until about 7:30 am!! They all had such a good time opening gifts and spending time together--NO fighting at all yesterday--that's the best present I received. :) I think each one had a favorite gift or two. Kendall--an ipod and some star wars mini figs; Kristen--a guitar and some American Girl doll clothes; Jarren--LEGOS!!! Need I say more?! And Jenna--fuzzies. Lots and lots of fuzzies! They are the jungle in my pocket--little jungle animals covered in fuzz. This Christmas has been very interesting with all the deaths--it really makes me realize what's important and what the true meaning really is--family and Jesus Christ. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Dance Recital

Kristen had her dance recital last Saturday. She is on the competition team and will be competing in three dances this spring. The recital is really a time to showcase what the non-competitive classes have been working on. They had an opening number where all the competitive dancers participated in--Kristen is the front red present--and then she performed a Christmas ballet. I LOVE the costumes!! They'll be using them all year. My parents and brother were able to come and watch. Thank you!! The recitals are fun to watch and now Jenna is so excited to be a dancing girl. :)

Choir

Kristen decided that she wanted to sing in her school choir this year. She had to practice hard--before school for one hour twice a week--even while off-track. They had a fun program, full of Christmas songs and she did a great job! (She is on the front row on the far right end) They had 5 performances in one week! I was in the high school choir (my mom had to practically force me to try out), but it was some of the most fun I had! I'm glad she could have this experience...

RIP

I've decided that I hate getting older. Well...I don't mind the aging, but things really hit home the older I get. I finally realize how fragile life really is. I realize that I'll probably never have the chance to go everywhere and do everything I want to do. And I realize how important and precious the memories we make are. I had an email friend die last week and my neighbor passed away last night. Both were quite young and left young children behind. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I know and believe what we believe (life after death; being with loved ones again), but it's still hard to think of these families being without their loved ones during the holidays and for the rest of their earthly lives. I think of myself in their positions and my heart just aches and breaks. May these sweet individuals rest in peace and may the Lord be with their loved ones and comfort them at this difficult time.

O Christmas Tree

For the last few years, we've purchase a "real" Christmas tree. We have mismatched ornaments and the kids go to town. Two years ago, Kendall was really bothered by it. He wanted a fancy tree, so, since we were just finishing our basement, I went to Target after Christmas and got a tree and matching ornaments (all on clearance I might add) for us to put in the basement. Funny---our basement is the pretty, fancy decor and the upstairs (where most people see) isn't. Anyway...he thinks of it as his tree. My idea of the decorating is to just put the red and gold bows and glass ornaments on in a mixed up array, but Kendall's idea was to put all the red bows in one section, all the gold bows in a section, all the red balls in a section, and all the gold balls in a section. NOT what I would've done, but I left it and he directed the other kids on where to put what. I think we all love it! Jenna loves to turn off all the lights and just sit by the glow of the tree.

Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo last Wednesday. I heard it was free and I figured since it was the day before Thanksgiving, it wouldn't be too crowded. Boy, was I wrong!!! We got there early and it wasn't too bad, but by the time we left, there was hardly a parking spot in the lot. I had 3 people waiting for my spot! All that aside, we had a very nice time! I think we all enjoyed the new babies the best--a baby elephant, baby giraffe, 3 baby tiger cubs, a baby crocodile, a baby langur monkey, and a couple of other babies. The only thing is, what kind of zoo has no lions or hippos?! Apparently ours. :)

13

Jon and I celebrated our 13 year anniversary last Sunday. It's so amazing how quickly time flies by. A lot of superstitious people say that 13 is an unlucky number. I think this year will be a great one, even if it did start out unlucky.

Jon and I decided to go out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary on Saturday night. Just before we left, I was playing the game Perfection with Jenna (the one that you have to put the shapes in the right spot before it pops). She wanted to put all the pieces in and then set the timer. So we did. My mind started wandering as we were waiting for it to pop and when it did, it scared me to death and I jumped, accidentally smacking Jenna right in the mouth! It made her mouth bleed and it got really swollen, since it was just operated on. I felt sooooooooooooooooooooooo bad!!!! About 24 hours later, she got a fever over 101 and I just knew she had an infection, since that was her only symptom. The fever lasted for 24 hours and was gone *just like that*. She's had a couple of weird fevers like that this year.

Anyway....hopefully the rest of our 13th year is better!!

Jenna's Surgery

Jenna had her surgery done this morning. They called yesterday and said that we needed to be there at 7:30 am and they'd do the surgery at 8:30. They said it would take about 30 minutes and then we'd have a recovery time before she could go home. Let me just say---this is a brand new hospital--they just opened up on November 2 and they said they aren't doing many surgies in this children's unit yet, so she's one of the first. Everything was sooooo new and clean! Anyway...this little girl is Sleeping Beauty--it's not often that she gets up in time to be somewhere by 7:30 am. But...last night she went to bed early and so she got up early--that part was easy. The hard part--she was thirsty and hungry and I couldn't let her have anything. She was soooooooooo mad at me! We got to the hospital and she was being so cute with everyone and they all made such a fuss over her. They told me they only had a few surgeries scheduled, but one canceled last night, so they got her in 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We seriously just whipped right through everything, with hardly a waiting time for any of it. The surgery only took 20 minutes and she woke up fast afterward. They gave her some apple juice and she downed half of it before I even got to her. They wanted her to drink 3/4 of it before she could go home. Well...then the drama started. She wanted to go back to the pre-op waiting area to play with those toys, not the toys they had in recovery. So...she put on her best mad face, refused to drink any more, and started crying. After about 30 minutes, the nurse let us go back to that room and let Jenna play. She was happy again and finished off her juice. We got home and she was dying to eat, so she had some cereal, but it really hurt her mouth--they said she can eat and drink whatever she wants to and will have about 3 days of pain. The doctor said both her tongue and upper lip were really tight, but things went well. What a trooper!

'Tis the Season....

A week ago, we were freezing cold and had snow on the ground. And now? Close to 70 degrees. I guess that's how fall works. It's still crazy that our first snowfall was on October 27---Jenna kept talking about Christmas!! We ended up with 4 inches in all and it stuck around for awhile. The trees were still so full of leaves that the heavy snow lowered some of the branches down to the ground. Speaking of trees, our trees are usually done dropping leaves by now--we have 12 trees in all. Five of them are just barely turning colors and when I look up at all the leaves still in the trees, I cringe, because I know what I'll be doing soon. I just hope they're all dropped and raked up by the time Thanksgiving is over with, because I don't want to be out raking during the Christmas season!

Halloween Continued...

The kids had a lot of fun scooping out the guts of the pumpkin---Jon did most of the carving this year. And here's Kendall's Black Rider costume---from Lord of the Rings. I thought the costume turned out to be pretty good--he wanted to use a scary mask that we had with the costume, which worked out fine. At least the kids have options, right?The kids all had a great time trick-or-treating! Kendall went with friends; Kristen went with a friend; and Jon took the other two out. We had really nice weather, so Jenna decided to be a ballerina this time around.

Halloween Costumes

Kristen the gypsy.

Kendall as Napoleon Dynamite.

Jenna the dog---her most favorite animal in the world! She's the mama dog and her stuffed animal is her baby dog.

Jarren as a "green" soldier from his Indiana Jones Lego (Wii) game.

As I mentioned before, I will post pictures tomorrow of Kendall's other costume. Very scary and cool!

Halloween Parade

Every year, our elementary school has a Halloween parade first thing in the morning. We couldn't find Kendall's wig and teeth. Kristen wore her costume to dance yesterday and stepped on the bottom ruffle and tore it---I had to do a quick job repairing it. I spent hours sewing Kendall this cool Black Rider (Lord of the Rings) costume, but he decided to be Napoleon Dynamite for school, since they weren't supposed to wear masks, have weapons, etc. So...he'll wear that for trick-or-treating tomorrow and I'll get pictures up then of that one. They set tables up in the gym at the school and have each grade, youngest to oldest, wind their way around the tables so that all the parents can see. Jenna had a lot of fun watching all of the kids and seeing everyone's costumes.
Jarren, Noah, and some other first graders.
Kristen and a couple of classmates (4th grade).
Kendall and a friend---6th grade.

Pumpkin Carving

We finally got around to carving our pumpkins last night. I don't like to do it too early, because the pumpkins go mushy. We had things going on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so last night it was. The kids had fun picking out what faces they wanted carved and scooping out the gooey guts. We ended up with a mix of scary and funny, simple and complicated. But we all had fun!!

Friendship is One Mind in Two Bodies....

My friend, Monica, took her daughter, Hannah, and Kristen to the temple to get their pictures taken in the fall leaves last week. Kristen and Hannah have been friends since we moved here--Hannah was about 7 months old and Kristen was 16 months old. They think alike, love the same things, and are so much fun! They're a year apart in school, but they play together, laugh together, dance together, sing together, fight together, and have fun together--just like best friends do. Anyway....thanks to Monica and Allie for taking these great pictures!!!

Cornbelly's

Last weekend, we went to Cornbelly's. The kids brought home a coupon from school and I thought it was just another corn maze. But we talked to some cousins who had gone and said it was sooo much more, so we went. We went after dark and thought it would be too dark for pictures, but they had so many lights set up, it would've been fine. So...no pictures. There were jumping pillows (kind of like huge trampolines), a slide complex, a corn box (like a sand box, but filled with corn kernels instead of sand), a carved pumpkin tower with famous faces/pirates/animals/kids favorites/etc, a princess area--castles, coaches, dress ups, etc. We did the spooky upgrade and had access to a huge corn maze, plus a 3-D spook alley, a creature spook alley, and a haunted corn maze. They had many other things too. We spent 3 1/2 hours there and could have stayed longer, but it was 10:30 pm--they close at 11--and the kids were EXHAUSTED!!! Jenna didn't want to leave--she wants Jon to build her a princess castle at her house. :) Anyway...we'll know for next time to bring the camera.

Our Very Own Pumpkin Patch

Last year as we were carving pumpkins for Halloween, Jon threw some of the "guts" out into the garden for compost. After realizing that they're full of seeds, we threw them in the garbage can, but apparently some of them got down into the soil, because we grew a volunteer pumpkin patch this year. I was sooo excited--and so were the kids--until we realized that we had just eliminated our pumpkin patch trip. We ended up growing 13 pumpkins--how's that for a Halloween number? So...here are the kids harvesting our own patch (but please try to ignore the weeds):(Not pictured: two pumpkins are still kind of green and I don't think they'll orange up in time.)

There's a First Time For Everything...

I was just running out the door to do errands yesterday afternoon, when the doorbell rang. Jon had dropped off a package to be mailed and they brought it back because it needed some paperwork filled out. Good thing, because I was HOME filling that out so it could be put back in the mail when the phone rang. It was the school. My first thought was one of the kids forgot something and needed me to bring it, but when I answered and it was an adult, I thought one of the kids was in trouble. Then I heard, "Kendall had an accident on the playground." My heart started pounding. He was playing football at recess and caught the ball. Another boy went to tag him (touch football) and tripped or something and slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. He went to the office and had it iced and then he went back to class, but he ended up back in the office, which is when they called me. I went over to the school and looked him over. He could hardly lift his right arm and when I touched his collar bone, the right side felt different--and he was almost crying with pain. I checked him out and called the dr. They were at lunch and couldn't get him in for 30 minutes, so we went in then. They couldn't see a bump (obvious break), but it felt different, so they did an x-ray and sure enough, he broke it. They said it wasn't broken all the way through, the bottom part of the bone is just barely still together, but most of the bone was broken. So...he gets to wear a swath to hold his arm tightly to his body for 2 weeks and then a sling for his arm for 4 weeks. He's in pain, but he'll be just fine. Why the title of the post? Out of 4 kids, some more wild than others, not one of the kids has ever had a broken bone before---or stitches for that matter. I'm surprised we've made it this long.PS He's a left-handed guy, so fortunately he's still able to "function."

Surprise! It's a Miley Cyrus Concert...

Kristen has been dying to see either Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus in concert and when I heard she was coming to town, I thought maybe that was something we could do. My neighbor told me the tickets were really expensive, so I entered a contest to try and win some, but didn't. I wasn't even going to tell Kristen about it, but decided to, just in case someone at school mentioned it. She was sooooo bummed that we didn't win the tickets! Well, yesterday afternoon, I was just sitting here and I commented to Jon that I felt bad about it and he told me to go ahead and buy some. We thought it would be so much fun to surprise Kristen! I got the tickets and didn't say a word. Jon had a cub scout cookout and Kendall had a football game, so I loaded all the kids up and went to the game and then dropped them all off at home, before running out the door with Kristen. I told them I had an errand, an appointment that I needed to go to. Kristen kept asking questions (I told her it was a girl thing) on the way and then we parked and there were soooo many people. She asked what store we were going to, because it sure must be a HUGE sale for that many people to be going to the same place! We walked into the building and she could hear someone singing and she kept saying, "What's going on? Where are we going? Just tell me what's going on in there!" I had her hold the tickets for a minute and she didn't even notice what they said. We went and found our seats and there's Metro Station singing and she still had no clue. I told her that a lesser known band usually opens for a more famous person and asked if she knew who we were there to see. You should have seen the look on her face!!! Wide eyed shock! We had sooooooooo much fun, screaming and singing along. It was great! I felt so bad for Miley--she had the flu and at the start of her 3rd song, she looked like she was going to pass out and then she ran off the stage. The backup singer finished the song and then they came out and said she was sick. We waited for about 10-15 minutes and then she came out and finished. She was a little shaky/rough on the first couple of songs, but I thought it was a great show and that she did a great job!! We had a blast and it was a very fun surprise!

Billy & Belly

As I've mentioned before, I kind of use this blog partly as a journal. And it's time I blogged about Billy & Belly.

Kendall never really had imaginary friends--he liked to dress up and pretend, but that was it. Kristen had Bee & Assina---a bee with red hair who lived in a pink house and a pig with curly orange hair. She would always talk about them. And sometime, I may share the story of when Bee died. I thought that my brother Kolten would snort up a lung from laughing at that one. :) Jarren went through a phase where he WAS someone else--he insisted on being called Nathan (a friend of his) and refused to answer to anything else. He WAS Nathan! Jenna is following more after Kristen's style, thus Billy & Belly.

Billy is a 7 year old boy with white hair who is very very very naughty! Any time something gets messed up, ruined, misplaced, colored on, etc. it's Billy's fault. Apparently, he sneaks into our house and does these mischievous deeds without me knowing. Of course Jenna is totally innocent in all the naughtiness---not---but she sure thinks she is. Belly is his 15 year old sister. She has yellow hair and is naughty too, but not as much as Billy. I think it's hilarious when Jenna starts to talk about them, especially Billy. She gets so scandalized by the things he does. And one day we were even driving down the street and she started screaming--"There's Billy's house!! There it is!" Billy & Belly love money and "they want lots of it, so they take it so no banks can have any money." You've gotta love Billy & Belly. :)

Washer Bracelets

And last, but not least (for today), are my washer bracelets. I work with the Young Women and we wanted to challenge them to work on the value of Virtue for the summer. The project was a big one and we wanted to have some type of reminder (for those who completed it) of their hard work and to remind them that a virtuous woman is a good thing. The color associated with the value is gold. So...back up....my mom was telling me about a lady that she works with who's granddaughter made these cute bracelets using hardware washers and ribbon. Well...after some research and time, I came up with these. There are only a couple of "gold" washers (brass), but it's to remind the girls that when you are virtuous, you stand out and that's it's a beautiful thing to be that way. They really seemed to love them--phew!