Christmas Day #1

I heard little scuttles in the living room Christmas morning at 12:30 am. I arose from my bed to find two excited boys eagerly rummaging through their stockings. Their eager faces told me that Santa had come. I dampened their excitement by pointing out that they still had six hours prior to the big reveal and to go to bed.

Six hours later I woke up to five sweet voices singing Silent Night and Santa Got Stuck in the Chimney Again at my door. I loved it!

Getting ready to open Santa's gifts.....

Santa requested no letters this year. Instead, he gave surprises that did not include electronics.

Thank you Santa!

Snorkel gear for mom and dad - Caribbean Cruise coming up.

So cute boots.

Football and a football pass to play tackle this year.

I think I need to have a chat with Santa about that one.

1,116 piece K'nex roller coaster set - complete with screaming sounds.

(This monster was put together on Sunday - 'the day of the sick'.)

Barbie House for the Ladybugs.

While dad was putting the Barbie house together,

Oreo and I took a snooze on the recliner.

Not one complaint!

Everyone was happy!

It was the best Christmas ever!

It's Just a Bug

'Twas the night AFTER Christmas when all through the house Jarin came running up the stairs with an awful tummy ache. I told him he had eaten too much and now his tummy was rejecting it. I wasn't kidding, five minutes later he was throwing up.

The rest of the night was a blur....

Saturday 9:30 pm - Jarin throws up

Saturday 10:30 pm - Rebekah wakes up complaining about her tummy and throws up

----Jarin and Rebekah take turns throwing up for the next 7 hours.

Sunday 5:40 am - Trevor runs upstairs bye-passing two unoccupied toilets and beelines for the furthest toilet in the house - mine. Thank goodness for tile.

Sunday 6:00 am - Cameron and I lay in bed and laugh. We wonder if the Swine Flu Brothers finally caught up to us (actually I'm pretty sure they came in October and possibly in November).

(Neighbor boys - I love it!)

Sunday 8:00 am - Cameron and I have an unspoken agreement. He cleans up barf and I clean up loose stools.

Sunday 10:30 am - Makayla feels sick and tired - join the world. She declines the invitation to visit the lavatory and survives.

Sunday 2:30 pm - Kerri throws up - finally!

The porcelain throne was called upon 17 different times, the floor twice and the kitchen garbage once. Faces were white and blank. Thank goodness for movies and Powerade.

Sunday 9:00 pm (24 hours later) - towels and pajamas are washed, toothbrushes and Tupperware bowls are being sanitized in the dishwasher, 3 bathrooms are wiped and clean and 5 kids are knocked out in their beds with only Powerade, applesauce and Progresso chicken noodle soup in their bellies.

Whew!

I think we got a bug!

Merry Christmas

"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"

Jarin started the day off yelling this phrase and repeated it every hour or so. It sounded vaguely familiar to me, yet, after the zillionth time of hearing it - I blocked it out of my brain.

Someone mentioned sledding. I took that opportunity to kick Cameron out the door with bundled up kids from head to toe to go find the closest hill. They were only gone for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The girls reminded me that we needed cookies and milk for Santa. The last thing I wanted to do was to make cookies. I suggested string cheese and an apple - nope. Just then, the doorbell rang and there stood my saving grace holding a plate of sugar frosted Christmas shaped cookies.

Our Christmas Eve began with it's traditional Shepard dinner. After a few complaints, it was upgraded this year from dried fruit, dried fish, nuts, olives and bread to baked fish, green salad, rosemary bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, humus and crackers - mmmm.

We opened our first gift of pajamas and modeled them for all to see.

Lively entertainment was provided by the Jensen children at the piano with Christmas carols.

We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and ate cake.

We all played with Oreo and watched her chase after her toy a million times.

Jarin rummaged through books and pulled out How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and read it to us using his famous vocal expressions. During his read, he stopped to look at me and said,

"This is my favorite part.....'Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"' Oh yeah - now I get it - duh.

Makayla read the story of Jesus' birth from Luke 2.

Family prayer was said and a special blessing was given to Santa.

Everyone went to bed without being asked - I am in awe!

I just checked the Santa Tracker - at the present he is in Montreal, Canada.

It's off to bed I go.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Countdown

This year I was hanging up our Advent socks for our countdown to Christmas when I heard one of the kids (I think it was Makayla) exclaim, "Not the socks again, are we going to do the 'thankful thing' again? It's kinda boring?"

Heaven forbid that a mother should subject her children to the boring 'thankful thing' year after year. I admit, I too wanted to do something new, so I stayed up all night with a December calendar and came up with a 'new' stocking advent idea. The next morning, instead of a sock containing a thankful phrase, each sock now contained an activity to do the day of its choosing. I plugged in school, church and our regular December hustle and bustle fun to the list of activities.

Before anyone thinks that I am an amazing mother - here is my disclaimer.....there were days that an activity just did not happen. Once we had to pack three stocking events into one day. Each night I peeked in a stocking just to make sure I was up to doing what was in there the next day. Twice I had to rewrite an activity for the sake of my sanity. Some occurred around the dinner table while eating to insure that it got done before anyone left for the evening. In the end, it was GREAT! All of my precious kiddies looked forward to taking a stocking down and spending time together.

Here is a list of our December events...

*Have a hot chocolate bar.

*Drive around the neighborhoods and see the Christmas lights.

*Watch 'Joy to the World' DVD.

*Make sugar cookies.

*Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn.

*Game night

*Sing Christmas carols.

*Read a Christmas story.

*Have a round robin story telling night.

*Make name attributes.

*Have breakfast for dinner.

*Eat at Red Robin - our favorite.

*Sledding

More events with pictures.....

25 days of stocking activities

*Deck the house with joys of Christmas.

*Make snowflakes

*Christmas party with the Packs

*Aunt Kylee left me a little surprise in the microwave -this smelly tradition has been going around since I was little.

*Spaghetti dinner with no plates or utensils.

*Decorate 1 Gingerbread House

I opted for Costco's famous gingerbread house kit instead of five small individual houses.

Thank you Costco!

*Ward Christmas Breakfast

Wrapped up with a yummy breakfast, children singing, The Nativity presentation (Jarin is the blue Shepard) and a treat from the Three Wisemen.

*School Christmas Sing

-Rebekah-

This is the first year that I did not have restless little ones or a bulky stroller or crying toddlers to maneuver around the school gym. Instead I sat and enjoyed every single minute without looking at the clock. I even joined the hundreds of crazy parents hunched over running back and forth with their camera taking pictures of their children - it was great.

Kerri is smack dab in the middle.

-Trevor-

-Jarin-

*School Christmas Class Parties

I helped Jarin's class this year - we made Sock Snowmen.

So cute!

*Sleeping under the tree the night before Christmas Eve.

Everyone hid in their sleeping bags when they saw me pull out the camera.

Oreo (in the middle of everyone) loved having extra sleeping buddies.

Christmas Cheer

Christmas brings plenty of opportunities to spread the Christmas cheer of giving. This year the kids wanted to choose their own service to give on top of the usual food drive, Christmas Giving Tree and dropping quarters into Santa buckets in front of grocery and department stores. Fortunately, our school and neighborhood made it especially easy to provide those opportunities for our kids.

Makayla made several hats to send to the Afghanistan for soldiers to give to children.

Here we have Jarin modeling Makayla's latest winter fashion hat.

Jarin collected 'Coins for Christmas' for a family in need.

Trevor tied a fleece blanket - his class presented blankets to the elderly with songs of cheer.

Rebekah and Kerri carefully selected precious pets to give to the teddy bear drive at their school.

Yeah for Christmas Cheer!

It's Great to be Eight

What happens when you turn 8.....

You get your first 'brand new' (no hand me downs from Jarin) suit coat.

Doesn't he look handsome?

And a new set of scriptures from Grandma.

Dad practices the dunking technique with you.

Baptism: a covenant to stand as a witness of Christ.

You share your birthday with your best friend.

You receive a brand new constant friend to help you choose the right

- the Holy Ghost.

Mom sings praises that she now has extra help from above.

Cub Scouts brand you into their den.

It's great to be eight!!

Love you Trev!

Newbee Quilter

Makayla asked for a new room makeover for her birthday this year. She wanted to repaint her room brown and blue and make a quilt to match it. I presented her with coupons as gifts the morning of her birthday and dragged my feet in honoring them for a couple of months.

Makayla's constant reminders that she had to start and finish her quilt by 'Young Women in Excellence Night' which was in November got me off the couch (like I ever have time to sit on the couch). We finally went fabric shopping to three different stores and found the Quilting Cottage. Bless their heart! The ladies found out that this was Makayla's first quilt and whisked her away for an hour to pile bolts of matching fabrics on the table to begin 'the selection'. She was in quilter's heaven. I browsed amazing quilts on the walls half tempted to start my own when reality set in... too much time, energy, money and I would actually have to sit down. Maybe later.

Piecing it together.

Fortunately for Makayla, she has fabulous Young Women leaders who all love to quilt. Leader #1 helped Makayla cut her 20 fabric fat quarters (not a body part) to begin her 'Turning 20' quilt.

Lesson learned....

When you sew too fast, you unpick forever!

Makayla and I spent General Conference sewing the quilt together - it was a lot of fun and I got to sit down here and there.

Ready to be machine quilted...

Makayla was responsible to earn money for her quilt to be quilted by another amazing YW Leader #2. Leader #2 called Makayla up and proposed a trade for quilting. Word must have gotten out that I was being stingy and making Makayla earn that large portion of the price tag. The trade was to watch Leader #2's funny farm for a week - fair deal. All that was left was the price of the batting and thread which Makayla earned in a weekend of babysitting some neighbor kids.

The machine quilting turned out beautiful!

(click on picture for closer look)

Leader #3 (the quilters of all quilters) taught Makayla how to sew the binding fabric onto her quilt to begin the lengthy binding process which resulted in pricked fingers and several band aids.

Quilt completed an hour prior to Young Women in Excellence Night - whew!

Our lives are like quilts - bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love.

~Author Unknown

Mr. Moo is Mr. Eight

Happy Birthday to my terrific, talented, teasing, totally awesome and cool Trevor!

We love you!

You're great Mr. Eight!

Chocolate for Talent

Candy wrappers are being found everywhere - under beds, in pant pockets, in the washer and laying next to the garbage (someone missed their foul shots). Where is this candy coming from? The Halloween candy is gone and Rebekah is the only one that has hidden candy in her panty drawer that she counts everyday. Someone has either discovered my secret stash of chocolate or found my forgotten stash. I finally got to the bottom of this mysterious multiplying goody garbage one evening as I caught Jarin chewing on his last Hershey and stuffing the wrapper inside his bed covers.

"Hey! Where are you getting all this candy?"

Jarin sheepishly looked at me and said, "Matt gives me a candy bar for every song I play on his piano. He especially likes Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Nope."

"If a ten year old boy wants to pay another ten year old boy to play his beautiful grand parlor piano in exchange for chocolate currency - go for it - but please put your wrappers IN the garbage AND brush your teeth!"

I'm so proud of my boy - and I love my antique out-of-tune piano!

Family Photos

It has been three and a half years since our family had professional photos taken. All for good reasons.

#1 It's so darn expensive and my camera did a fairly good job the last three school years.

#2 Coordinating outfits - fortunately I found everything I needed hidden in closets.

#3 Begging and pleading to smile and be good for 45 minutes.

#4 Family pictures are stressful: I just don't like it - but I do like the outcome.

#5 Picking out the photo for the Christmas card - now that everyone is older, they all think they have an opinion.

We went to an amazing old mill in American Fork that had antiques laying around and old buildings scattered throughout the property. The owner makes a killing each weekend as he charges families and couples to walk here and there avoiding rusty nails to get their portraits done. He even promised the kids free candy canes if they prevailed their trek. It was great fun for the first 10 minutes until the candy canes started calling their names. Potty humor was used as a last resort to crack smiles and endure to the end.

Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts.

~Author Unknown

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

~Erma Bombeck

Parenthood

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

~Anonymous

And thou shalt in thy daughter see,

This picture, once, resembled thee.

~Ambrose Philips

A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future.

~Author Unknown

Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys.

~Anonymous

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass."

"We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys."

~Harmon Killebrew

(this is my favorite picture of the boys)

You don't raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes.

~Walter M. Schirra, Sr.

Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.

~Author Unknown

Growing Jensens

I am refined daily by five fabulous children who choose me to be their mother. For that I am amazed, humbled, grateful and a bit nutty.

I love you Makayla, Jarin, Trevor, Rebekah and Kerri!

Our genes make us immortal.

~The Secret of Life, PBS

While we try to teach our children all about life,

Our children teach us what life is all about.

~Angela Schwindt

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child.

There are seven million.

~Walt Streightiff

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.

~Rajneesh

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.

They have clung to me all my life.

~Abraham Lincoln