Crazy Hair

Today Alison was so excited to go to school because it was crazy hair day and spirit day. She got to wear her new school shirt. I didn't think about taking her picture until she was already in her snow pants and coat but you can see her hair. When she went to bed tonight, she asked me if she could wear her bangs like this again tomorrow.

Emily is Walking!

Our family has been quite sick the last 5 days. We haven't done much but sit around trying to get everyone better. Emily stood up yesterday and just walked across the room! From then on, she can walk. She is so excited to run with the other kids but she is not there yet.

Emily Walking from Stacie Jensen on Vimeo.

Fun Activities

One of my goals for the new year is to do more fun things with the kids. I used to let Jacob and Ali paint all the time. I rarely let Josh and Rylie paint or play with play dough. Thursday, I decided to let them first play with play dough. I forgot the whole reason for doing this and thought I could get something done while they played. After a while I found Josh playing video games and Rylie watching T.V. The play dough, of course, was not cleaned up. Once I cleaned it up, they wanted to paint. Again, thinking they would be entertained, I made bread. I just happened to look at the table when I saw Rylie trying to drink the paint water. She was soaked and paint was everywhere. By the end of the two activities, All three kids were crying and I was mad because of the mess.

Lesson learned, They want to do the fun activities WITH me, not while I do something else. I missed the whole point and paid the price. I did get a few good pictures though.

Emily's favorite activity

Emily spends most of her day going up and down the stairs. Unfortunately, that means I spend most of my day on the stairs also.

Jacob's 12th Birthday

Jacob invited 3 friends from the ward for a slumber birthday party on New Years Day. We had pizza for dinner. He chose donuts instead of a cake again this year. He was given some Nerf guns at the party so they they set up a war zone and played for a couple of hours. Then they played video games for a couple more hours. Watched G-force (movie) in bed and then stayed up past 3 am talking. In the morning they invented some interesting smoothies for breakfast. He had a great party.



On Jacob's birthday, Darren took him out to dinner and then they came home for cake and presents.

Winter Wonderland

We (when I say we I mean mostly Darren) take the kids outside as often as we can. Usually if it is at least a wind chill factor over zero. Alison would live outside if we let her.
Darren and Emily
Rylie usually spends most of her outside time eating snow.
Alison, the outside veteran.

Fun with Dress-ups

We gave the kids some dress-ups for Christmas this year (cheap Halloween costumes that I got after Halloween). I was surprised how much they liked them.

Alison as Super girl
Joshua as Bumblebee Transformer
Rylie as Snow White

Christmas Morning

We had a great Christmas this year. The only thing I would have changed was to be with extended family. We always had my mom and dad over on Christmas morning to watch the kids open their gifts. We really missed that.
Because of that, we started a tradition of having a continental breakfast in my bedroom while we waited for Grandma and Grandpa to arrive. The kids made us keep this tradition even though there was no reason to have it this year.
Another tradition is taking a picture of everyone on the stairs before going down to see the tree and presents.

The Loot!

Emily

Joshua showing how mean and bad this transformer really is.
Rylie loved this Disney princess castle.
Jacob was shocked to get this ping pong table (which was the only thing he asked for).
Alison was pleased with her Littlest Pet shop adoption center. (So was Rylie)

Even though we missed being away from family, it was wonderful to stay home and in jammies ALL day.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve Darren had the day off. We had a good time as a family. We made sugar cookies. The kids always enjoy frosting and decorating them. Emily was asleep for most of the activity but woke up just in time to enjoy a cookie.



For dinner we had each person choose one favorite dish and we had a family pot luck. It was really fun. The kids ate really well because they had at least one item they liked. Of course we ended up with no vegetables and fruits. Some of the items we had were: Mac and cheese, popcorn shrimp, Chicken broccoli casserole and mini corn dogs. I think we will do this again next year. It was a lot of fun. The activity that Jacob chose to do was to act out the nativity scene. Our costumes were pitiful but it was spur of the moment.



Josh refused to participate.

The only way to get him to participate was to have the shepherds have a sword fight.

Here is Jacob as a shepherd and Josh and Rylie were his sheep.

We sang Christmas songs, had eggnog by the fire, and the kids put on their new pj's. Ali wrote a note to Santa and set out cookies and milk by the fireplace. The kids were in bed at normal time. All in all we had a great Christmas Eve.