The joy of a digital camera

Do you remember having a 35 mm camera? I'm sure some still own and use one quite proficiently. I, on the other hand was not good at using one or having my picture taken by one. I have a tendency to have massive red eyes, drunk faces, or closed eyes, and sadly this has been passed on to my children. We have had a digital for almost six years and there have been more deleted pictures than actual kept ones, because of this fact. It takes quite awhile to take a good family picture, where all the kids, at least look alive and well. We're lucky if they are smiling and looking at the camera, with their eyes fully open. All of this said, last night with the help of our digital camera we were able to get this "picture perfect" photo of Sean, Kaelin and myself. I love technology!
























At least there's no red-eye, right?

Learning to read

I wanted to make a gingerbread house as a Christmas family tradition. Since we are low on money and time, I just bought a store-made kitIt really looked simple enough. Kaelin kept complaining that the smell of the gingerbread was going to make her sneeze. Savanna, of course was eating just about everything. She would reach over to put a candy on the house and then very quickly change directions and the candy would end up in her mouth. Sean and Kaelin did very well with the decorating. All went quite smoothly.




This is a picture of an almost finished gingerbread house.




But slowly the roof started to slide. I had followed the directions, of holding it together for one minute and then frosting the top and hold for an additional 15 seconds, before decorating.
But it still feel apart. I was feeling a little bumbed, and cheated.
Until, Rob made me reread the instructions.





Apparently, as I help Kaelin with her reading skills, I need to work on mine.

New best friend

I think Sean has been affected the most by our move. Recently, I realized how much. He started off potty training really well and has now regressed. He used to sleep through the night and now he routinely comes into our room in the middle of the night. He used to have no problem with a dark room at night time and now needs a night light and the door slightly ajar. I'm sure there are more but those are the ones that I'm starting to connect with the move. I think he has realized that we're not going back. This isn't just another vacation. He has attached himself to this "brown shirt" also. He wears it everyday, and then pairs it with pj bottoms at night. If you see him wearing a different shirt, his brown shirt is usually hiding underneath. I try to wash it at least once a week and more if it's visibly dirty. It might be gross to some, but he's three, its not like he has B.O. or something. I don't mind too much, because I think he's having a tough time, he should have something permanent and familiar. I just hope he out grows his attachment before he outgrows the shirt.

a joy of childhood

Who has never done this, as a child or even as an adult? We wanted brownies, so we looked up a recipe and made them. First time I have ever made home made, not boxed brownies, by the way.


They turned out pretty good.

stolen idea

I've been feeling really lazy with the kids. Our mornings are kind of rushed getting ready and off to school, then the kids get home for lunch, Savanna takes a nap while homework is done and that's when the lazy sets in. We just watch t.v. until dinner. It's pretty sad, so I'm trying to find fun stuff that's not TOO messy, since this isn't our house. (Brandi, let me know if this activity is too nerve racking for you)

Anyway, I saw this on another blog that I follow. I gave them each a bowl of colored water and then an empty bowl. They could mix the colored water to make new colors. The empty two liter is to clean out the brown that eventually was produced. The cookie sheets were for spill containment.
Sadly this only kept them occupied for ten minutes. But, hey that's ten minutes away from all these new shows they have found on cable.

Freeze

Rob and I caught a classic picture of Sean frozen in front of a t.v. This happens when he's tired and he's watching a new episode of a favorite show. He sat in this exact position for at least five whole minutes, might not seem long but time it, it's pretty long. His arm was just frozen in that spot.


Rob and the kids just relaxing and enjoying some Daddy time.

New addition to our family!!!!

Kaelin has been bugging us about having our family be bigger. She even said that she would save money to help us out. Well, after a lot of thinking, a lot of saving, and a couple of months of waiting, we finally have some pictures to share with everyone. Hopefully, you can see exactly what I'm talking about; and I hope your as excited about our good news as we are. It will be hard when it's time for us to move but I know it'll work out. We have friends and family here to help us if we need it.








































Hopefully, I fooled some of you. Anyway, Kaelin finally saved up enough money to buy a beta, a plant, and some rocks. His name is Purple Prettiness, picked out by Kaelin of course.


I think Savanna loves him the most.




The video shows how much Van loves the fishy and how crazy the other two are.

Edit

Sorry Marci.....Brooklynn not Brooklyn

Are we in Utah?

If you look closely you can see three churches. The first two are obvious but then in the trees you can see the other steeple. At first I thought this was redundant. After a few weeks of having four wards in our building, starting at 1 and having the meetings backwards so that we don't overlap; I definitely think it is needed in some places.

A very late travel post

Well, we recently moved. And I planned on doing a post about the trip, but it never happened, because I wanted to get a picture of every state sign and I missed two. I decided to do the post anyway, because I don't have very many new pictures.



We made one of those paper chains, counting down for the move. This was the last chain, of course Kaelin wanted it to be purple, and if you wrap it around correctly it does say UTAH.



The first state I successfully got a picture of was, we were in Arkansas very early in the morning and I didn't think the picture would even show up, also we were on a bridge and it would have been a little tricky to get it.



At one point we passed a WHOLE LOT of windmills. They were really cool and it reminded me of that movie Mac and Me, does anyone remember that one? These ones were just close to the road, up over the little hill there were close to 50 windmills.




We passed through Texas




And on our second day we stopped in New Mexico, which I thought was gorgeous! As you see, I didn't get a picture there either. A big semi was blocking my view of the sign. But we woke up early the next morning and I was able to get a picture of this splendid sunrise.



On up to Colorado, just for a little while. The part we drove through was not very exciting, very dead looking.
I immediately started to miss the lushness of Tennessee.



We started getting closer to Utah and starting seeing new scenes of beauty. Large open spaces and big skies. Unique rock formations that I kept taking pictures of as requested by Kaelin. I'll only post one though.



Then, finally into Utah. This is where our tarp covering the bed of our truck got destroyed by a wind storm and we were stuck in traffic for the first time in the canyon. Within 10 minutes of home the pile of electronics stacked next to Sean toppled onto him. Hopefully not a sign of what's to come.


Hopefully we'll be doing some more activities and I'll remember to bring the camera.

Brooklyn Jensen

This is Marci's (my sister) baby girl Brooklyn. Just a quick video for my parents and/or anyone who knows her. Love you Marci!

Snowy photo shoot, sort of

Before Halloween we got some snow. The kids were pretty excited since they haven't seen "real" snow in a while or not at all. I was just giddy. I bundled the kids all up in hats, gloves and winter coats. When I picked them up from school most of the other kids were just wearing light coats. I couldn't decide if I was just over reacting or what? Before we went back inside I wanted to get pictures of the kids in the snow. You can barely see the snow flakes but believe me there were a lot of flakes.



This is what happens when you tell Sean to "smile"




This is Savanna's confused look that she gives us sometimes. I've tried to get it on camera and finally got it. It's funny because the look kind of says, "You are so weird but I still love you" She looks like she laughing at you on the inside.


They were pretty good when I asked them to sit on the stairs for a group picture. Kaelin has a habit of putting her face toward the camera but then her eyes are looking somewhere else. Sean is still trying to master smiling. Although on Halloween, I realized that if you ask to see his vampire teeth it ends up being a some what normal smile. Savanna, I'm just lucky I snapped the picture in time before she got away. And that Vampire decoration wasn't intended to be a part of our little totem, we just got lucky.

Halloween!!!

I Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!!



Daddy and Savanna at the church's "trunk or treat"



I needed to put these two pictures up, because of the Ursula costume. She in the background of the top pictures. She said that her mother MADE it! Awesome!







our little angel, waiting in line for some food






our crazy monkey



our queen bee (minus her crown and antennae, because she said they hurt )

They all have that face because we were waiting for food and in front of us was a witch, and man with blue hair and some kids covered in blood. A little disturbing to little kids.





This was at the beginning of the night, I tried to get her to stand "normal" and she said, "but this is how I want to stand for my picture."



me, or as the Sean kept referring to me, Mommy Wig. We've only been in the ward for a little while but, not many people recognized me, until I started to talk to them.




Boots the Monkey (from Dora, even though the real Boots, is gray )





Brandi was trying to get her attention, that's what Van is staring at. We have a picture with all the grand kids and the dogs but I can't find it. It might come later

Night Pumpkins

I finally got enough lights to put in the pumpkins in order to take a collective glowing picture. yeah!



More list items-

• Had to return a bra and had the following conversation: "Was there any problems with the item?" "No, it was just too big." "Well, do you want to exchange for the right size?" "They don't make a smaller size" This is when the customer service (teenager) opened the bag and saw that it was a bra, and she literally giggled!
• Trying to get my confidence to shop for a bra in the little girls department.
  

Pumpkins!!!!!

Since there is less than a week before Halloween, we got our pumpkins and got to carving. Sean told Rob what shapes he wanted on his pumpkin. Kaelin helped to carve hers. Then, all the kids colored their pumpkins with magic markers. Savanna had her pumpkin taken away after we realized she was licking the marker off of it.

You might have an assumption about what Savanna is doing with that spoon






And you would be right. She ate A LOT of pumpkin pulp.



Kaelin had issues with getting messy, we told her it was all part of pumpkin carving.





left-right
Sean's with different shapes, Kaelin's with a bat stencil, Rob's optometry pumpkin, my tree, and Savanna's colored one. I need to taken one when they are all a glow, so you can see them a bit better.

Our new digs

We are temporarily living with my sister. Here are a few pictures of our area.

We are down in her basement. This is the kids room, smaller than in Memphis, but here they only have their beds, so it's not bad.
Savanna was following me around while I was taking the pictures.



This room is our living/computer/toy room/bedroom. It actually works quite nicely the kids would always take their toys to wherever we were anyway, so now it's already there and we can clean up easier, awake or asleep
Kaelin was making her own bed, just for fun. Since our bed is also our couch, she wanted to use this little bench for her own.
That closet has some storage and the kids' toys. We didn't bring too many but the amount we have seems just right. I'm very tempted to go through and throw out a lot of their toys that are still packed in Memphis. BTW that dark thing over in the corner is a huge bean bag that belongs to my sister Jayme, the kids will lay on it in the morning or while we read books. So I guess you could count that as a couch.





Also, I have a few more to add to my list from the previous post.

• When you spill your food, it actually falls in your lap.
• While sitting in a vibrating, massage chair the only things that jiggle are your shoulders.

these also came from personal experience from this weekend.