Christmas Weekend

Wow. What a weekend. I've tried to keep it short and simple, but your know how it is when you have Christmas with multiple parties and 2 families to celebrate with. You end up with a lot of pics and a lot of fun. So, we'll just dive right into it.

Friday night we started off the festivities with Dodee and Papa's Christmas party. Dodee serves her famous breakfast for dinner, we hang out, and then Dodee and Papa (and others) shower everyone with gifts. It was a great night. But probably the most amazing thing that happened was that Jackson sat on my lap. That's a first for me and him. Except for when he was a baby and didn't know what was going on. But that doesn't count.

After the party we took the cousins home with us and had a sleep over. I think this is going to be a new tradition for us. You see, the adult Jensen's do breakfast at Market Street Grill the next morning, so we thought we would take the kids so the adults could actually go. And we had a grand time

The girls watched Polar Express upstairs. And keep in mind we started these movies after the party at 9:30 or so. And only 2 out of the 9 kids fell asleep during them. How do kids stay awake??

And the boys (and Oakley) watched Super 8 downstairs.


For our kid breakfast we made cake balls, thanks to the Cake Ball cooker Heidi gave me for my birthday.

After a few balls decorated Annie went straight to eating the sprinkles.

And my girls went straight to the batter.

Girls after my own heart.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and getting the final things ready for Christmas. Then we headed over to Jensen for a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. I had my first taste of a deep fried turkey and it was oh, so delicious. After a food and chit chat we headed to Temple Square to meet up with my parents.

We got a picture underneath my absolute favorite tree, the big red one.

And a pic of the kids by the yellow and orange one, my other favorite.

We headed home, got the kids to bed and got ready for Santa to come.

And come he did. He ate the kids treats they made and left a letter.

I'd have to say Santa did an amazing job...

We always make the kids come in our room and get a family pic. Not the best picture ever, but what can you do.

First up stockings.

I couldn't believe how excited the kids were for every little thing they found in there.

Then on to the presents.

And then the finale. Oakley's face says it all.

And the peace and quiet that followed Christmas is just what Trent and I asked Santa for.

After hanging out, playing with gifts, and relaxing, we headed out to Jensen's for Christmas breakfast.

And since it was Christmas we let Aiden have a block of cheese for breakfast.

Presents followed breakfast and once again we were extremely spoiled by everyone.

Next up we headed to Veigel's for Christmas dinner and more presents. Seriously, I can't believe how many gifts we opened. Everyone is so generous.

I guess Oliver didn't want to sit with all the cousins.

We finished the night off with tons of delicious food at my parents. Then headed home for some much needed sleep.

Phew.

We hope you all had as magical a Christmas as we did.

And here is to a great New Year.

Kids and the Holidays

We all know that kids change our lives. It is hard and a lot of of work to raise kids, but obviously worth it. And when it comes to the Holidays kids make them that much more fun. Here are the things I have noticed that have changed since having The Hoard.

*Kids love any craft/project that has to do with anything yummy and messy. Gingerbread houses are no exception and the perfect Christmas Activity. And thank goodness for The pre-made gingerbread houses these days.

Who would of thought candy and frosting could be so much fun and make such a cute house.

*Kids make the countdown to Christmas a daily ritual with numerous advent calendars. You can just feel their excitement grow as they get to take a link off or eat the day's treat. And can anyone else believe that Christmas is only 2 days away? I can't and neither can my kids.

We had 5 Christmas chains this year, once again thank goodness for schools and teachers that do fun things for my kids.

*Kids make it possible to have a Christmas play date and lunch. The girls in my ward (and Kim who will be in our ward some day) came over for a delicious lunch of soup, salad, bread, wassle, and chocolate waffles and ice cream. And as always these ladies are the best and I love that we are such good friends.

*Kids changed our tree. I used to take a long time decorating our tree, making sure each ornament was placed in the proper spot, with perfect spacing and color arrangement. Since kids, I don't even get off the couch while they hang ornaments. And this year we added some home made snow flakes to the ensemble.

With some thank you notes for Santa,

And a few home made ornaments here and there. I think our tree actually looks better than it's "perfect" days.

*Kids bring stories into our home. Now we have a stack of Christmas books as part of our decorations. Most of these were given as gifts, which I am very thankful for. Now I just need to be better at reading them to my kids...

*And, last but not least, our Nativity Scene has changed. Like the tree I would place them in a perfect arrangement, so all the pieces could be seen, and, once again, evenly spaced in their own spots. Now the scene looks like this:

And this:

The kids always place Jesus in the center surrounded by everyone.

My kids are pretty smart.

Jesus should be the center of Christmas.

So glad I have the Hoard to teach me a thing or two and to bring the excitement and spirit of Christmas back into my life. Can't wait for the magical day to get here.

Anniversary Celebration

We celebrated out Anniversary Friday night. It was a good time. Luckily we have an awesome family who stepped in and took our kids. The Bentleys and Clarks rock. They even let the kids sleep over. And Grandma Teri was nice enough to watch Brooke for us too. ;) Thank you all!

As soon as we dropped the kids off a feeling of total relaxation and happiness came over us. I had to snap a pic of it.

Trent took me to the Mandarine where we ordered a meal for 6 just for the 2 of us. Everything was so delicious. You cannot beat a Mandarine egg roll with extra plum sauce.

Afterwards, we went to a late showing of Sherlock Holmes 2. Loved every second of it. And now I have decided my new movie boyfriend is Jude Law. Loved him in the movie.

It was a great night that had to come to an end, but not before we took a pic in front of the huge lit tree at the gateway, not that you can see much of the tree in a self portrait.

The next morning after sleeping in until 8, I went and did a little Christmas shopping and came across this little doll.

What Mother would ever buy something like this for their little girl? I about died when I saw it. Lets just teach our girls to be sluts from 3 years old on up. Seriously what is wrong with people.

Psycho

Our girls are very dramatic and psychotic at times. This morning was no exception. They got ready for preschool and Trent took them on his way to work. Or so I thought. I got out of the shower and heard the girls screaming and Trent yelling. For some reason unbeknownst to us and even the girls, they were scared to go to Preschool. What? They have been going for 2 years now and have never had issues like this. After a few minutes of more screaming, crying, threats Trent took them back down. Paige went right in and Morgan cried for another 20 minutes. Disciplinary actions were taken that had no affect on her. Finally, Mrs Eggett pealed her off of Trent in a screaming frenzy. Seriously, who knows what demon posessed Morgan this morning.

I just picked the girls up and they came out beaming from ear to ear holding their very own gingerbread houses. Their fearful morning forgotten and happiness flowed in the world again. I am now starting to believe that my girls are not possessed, but may actually be bipolar.

Morgan still cannot tell me what her problem was, but says she loves preschool and loves her house with the sleigh in front.

Drama, Drama, Drama.

These girls just might do us in yet.

11 Years

Trent and I have been married 11 years today. I can't believe it. To celebrate I am working tonight and going to mutual. Sounds fun right? We usually head down to St. George for a weekend away from kids, but since we just went for Thanksgiving we decided not to. I am starting to regret that decision... I do have Friday night off work now, so we are hoping to at least go out to eat. Anyone want to watch the Furious Five...and maybe even let them sleepover? ;)

I was looking through our pictures from the olden days before we had to worry about getting babysitters to do anything and couldn't help but love Trent even more. So much has changed for us in the past 11 years, but we are still best friends. I am not going to get all mushy, in fact I am done talking about it right now. However, I am going to add just one pic from our kidless days. One of our last trips before we started making The Hoard.

And who knows, maybe in 11 years we will have another glorious, kidless vacation. My kids will be old enough to take care of themselves by that time right?

Happy Anniversary Trent.

I'm glad you picked me.

Stools

I am not talking about the stools I deal with at work, but the stools we have had for the past 6 years in our kitchen. They have been through a lot seeing how we use them for every meal and that we never sit at our kitchen table.

They were permanantly dirty, the "straw" was coming off making it very easy to get slivers, and the paint was chipped.

One was so worn out it almost had a hole right through the top.


It was a few months past time to get new stools. It is very difficult to find stuff that goes with our light cupboards and white counters, but we did find some online. The problem was they were $50 a piece plus shipping.

So, I asked Trent nicely if he would just refinish the stools we had. Not really, I ordered him. And, being the good husband he is, he obeyed. I am not being sarcastic at all here.

Every spare second he had was working on these stools and believe me, he doesn't have a lot of them.

I am in love with how they turned out. Trent did a fantastic job as always.

Nice, smooth, clean stools.

No more slivers in our bums.

I personally think all of Trent's work was worth it. It saved us $300. Trent doesn't really agree, but I am still very grateful.

Thank you Trent, thank you.

Unload

I asked Paige to unload the dishwasher and this is what I got.

I guess she did follow my instructions perfectly.

Next time I will be more specific and ask her to unload and put the dishes away.

The Big 3-2.

I turned 32 on Friday. Age doesn't really bother me. I could care less how old I am. I have never understood why people freak out about it. I say embrace it.

I had a very low key, relaxing Birthday. It started with a cuddle from my girls. And don't judge my bed head.

And the boys wrote me Birthday notes. Aiden brought his card to me with 2, 5 dollar bills from his job money. It was really sweet....and his card is pretty hilarious.
(Dear Mom. I love you when you are mad and I like you when you are nice. I love you mom!)

And Andrew drew me I love you faces.

His note said, Dear Mom. Happy Birthday. I love you. I like to see you.

Friday night Blake and Kristen joined us for dinner and a movie (Luke and Kim joined us for the movie and Brooke and Bridget joined us for dinner). We had Pei Pei and 3 cakes. Yes, I said that right. Usually if I don't make a cake I don't get a cake, so I made one. Then Kim took my kids in the afternoon and they made me a cake (the one with the big 32 on it), then Kristen was nice enough to bring a cake and candles. Lets just say I should buy a membership to weight watchers after this weekend.

Everyone sang Happy Birthday and I made a wish,



and blew out the candles on every cake, with the help of Andrew.

We finished the night with The Help. I loved it, the boys not so much.

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The night before Trent arranged a babysitter and took me out to CPK. It was also very delicious. See what I mean about the weight watchers thing? I've got to learn to control my intake.

It was a great birthday. Thanks to everyone that called, texted, FB, messaged me. You are all the best!

Ned

Meet Ned.

He is our Elf and came to us last night. Santa dropped him off at the door, knocked and vanished back up to the North Pole and left Ned to keep an eye on things. The kids couldn't believe how fast Santa was. They didn't even see him leave, which confirmed that Santa really is magic.

This morning the kids got up and searched for Ned. He had found the perfect spot to watch The Hoard.

This whole thing is brilliant and the kids love it. I read it on Kimmy's and Jamie's blogs and had to join the fun. I also took it up a notch and had Santa send a message to the kid's to tell them what Ned is going to make sure they do. It has worked wonders in the 12 hours since Ned as joined us. I joked that we need an elf for every Holiday to keep the kids in line.

Here are the links to the kid's messages from Santa. If you haven't done it, you should. My kid's were fixated on the screen the whole time Santa was talking to them. And they had to tell everyone about it.

Aiden-always finish whats on your plate.

Andrew-be quieter when your inside the house.

Oakley-always keep your room tidy and squeaky clean.

Paige-stop throwing those silly tantrums.

Morgan-always pick up your toys and put them away.

Luckily my kids were all on the nice list. Hopefully Ned reports they stay that way....

Christmas Pageant

We had our Ward Christmas Party on Saturday morning.

My boys were wise men. Aiden is right behind around holding his box of gold. We forgot our camera so these pics are from a cell phone. Sorry about the quality.

My girls were angels.
My kids were asked to sing a song. And guess who had to teach them the song? Me. The least musically talented person ever created. So, when you watch the video just remember who their mom is. Considering this, they actually sound pretty good. ;) It doesn't help that the microphone was pointing directly at Andrew the whole time.

It was pretty darn funny....and cute.

A Rather Blustery Day

I am sure every one knows about the wicked windstorm last week. I have never seen anything like it. Our neighborhood looked like a tornado had plowed through. Tree after tree were blown over. It looked something like this:

(I stole the picks from our neighbor Quinn and Kimmy.)

Luckily our house only had a branch and a few shingles come off.

And since we didn't have power kids were sent home early Thursday and school was cancelled Friday. Great for the kids, big bummer for me.

So what did we do with our extra time?

We did some Christmas and grocery shopping,

Played video games,


Made gingerbread men,

No, I didn't make the dough, someone in our ward gave it to the kids when they got their costumes for our ward Christmas party.

And to finish the night off we hung out at Jill and Cameron's. Jill made us a delicious dinner and then made dessert with the kids while Trent slept and I sat on the couch. She's the best.

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning up. Church was even cancelled on Sunday for a massive clean up. So while Trent did this:

We had a hot lunch. Mine consisted of home made tomato soup and grilled cheese. Delish.

And the kids did this.

It was a very eventful weekend.

And so glad my little Hoard and house came away undamaged. Also glad to have power and all the modern day functions that come with it. Life is hard without it. I shouldn't be complaining because we didn't even get the worst of it!

Here is to a tree-less B-Town.