Christmas Day

See what I mean about the boxes? We got all kinds of fun stuff, and all Sophie wanted to play with was the box. :)

We got together with a bunch of friends from the good ol' Holladay 29th ward in Salt Lake where Joseph and I met. It was so fun to see them again, especially with the many additions to the group since the last time we were all together. Now if we could just get Brandon married....

Our Little Family Christmas

We had Christmas as a family on the 23rd so we could open our presents to each other then. Sophie loved the blocks, magnets, and little recorder she got. But her favorite part by far were the boxes. She's finally discovered the joy of boxes and has made them into boats, planes, and little homes for herself where she takes her pillow and books and stays for hours. It's quite adorable to watch.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

We visited the "real" Santa at the mall and surprisingly did fine sitting on his lap. Sophie's not exactly trying to reach out to touch someone, she just wasn't quite sure why I took her pillow away for the pictures and she wanted it back. Oh well, we're just not very good for the camera yet, but we'll get better.

All I Want For Christmas Is...

...a wish I've already had granted. I wished that next summer we could have another little sweet baby join our family, and we're going to! We're excited to announce that I am 11 weeks pregnant and expecting Baby #2 in early July of next year. I'm feeling great and just hungry alllll the time, so we're thinking this must be a boy. :) The ultrasound last week revealed a little blob with a head, arms, legs, and a fluttering heartbeat. It was flipping all over the place and hard to catch a picture of, but we finally got a good one. We're very excited and can't wait to find out what we're having!

How Much Is Your Blog Worth?

My blog is worth $16,371.66.
How much is your blog worth?

Don't know who's paying, but I'll take that in cash, please. 100 dollar bills will be fine. How much is your blog worth?

Miss Independent

Sophie loves to put her little feet into our shoes and clomp around the house in them. She had a little help getting into these boots and then she found it extremely difficult to go anywhere in them, but she still looked much cuter in them than her Mama does.

Sophie is so independent, except for when she's not. We were in a room full of other kids this morning, and after watching the older ones play for a while, she was content to take her pillow over to one corner of the room and play around the piano by herself. She gets frustrated when she can't open something by herself and needs my help, and she often doesn't want something anymore if I've had to help her get it. But then she still has a hard time playing at home unless me or Joseph are playing right there with her, giving her our undivided attention. She's especially attached to Daddy these days. I loved when I got to quit nursing until I realized how much I'd miss getting to be close to my baby who rarely ever wants to be held or cuddled anymore. She used to be such a Mama's girl, but she's very happy if it's Daddy who comes in to get her in the morning or feed her or read to her these days. Ah well, I guess that's why we have more babies, right? I know they'll all go through different phases, I just hope none of them get tired of me permanently. :)

My Daddy's Birthday!!

My Daddy was such a cute boy!

Mommy says she hopes all her sons turn out as cute as their daddy.

Now it's my DADDY'S birthday! He thought Mommy turned 29 yesterday with such grace and style that he'd try it out, so he is 29 today! Happy Birthday, Dad! Thanks for always playing with me and for loving me and Mom so much. You're the Greatest Dad Ever and I love you!

xOXo,

Sophie Jo

My Mommy's Birthday!!

Today is a special day, my Mommy is turning 21! (Again for the 9th time)
I want to tell her I love her and that she is the best Mom in the world!
She is so good to my daddy and so patient with me .
I love you!

First Snowfall of December

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!" We awoke on this first day of December to a winter wonderland outside. During the night several inches of snow fell and it was still falling. It was a beautiful sight, and we couldn't wait to get Sophie outside to play for her first time ever in it. Here's her account of the experience:
"First I got shoved into a snowsuit that's way too big for me and Mom said I looked like the little boy on "A Christmas Story" who couldn't put his arms down. But I was warm! Then they put these boots on my feet that were too hard to walk in so I had to have some help with that. But I sure loved that strange white stuff that we rolled into balls and made into snowmen and threw at each other, and that mommy even let me taste! It was so much fun!"

Daddy made me throw snowballs at Mommy.

Little footprints in the snow.

Mountain West Conference Champs

Congrats to BYU for the win over Utah today and snagging the Mountain West Conference Championship title! Second year in a row! We got to go to the game and it was so much fun! The last couple minutes did a number to my heart, but the good ol' Cougs pulled through with a touchdown and finally beat the Utes at home. It was the last game we'll get to attend for a while, so it was a lot of fun to be there. Sophie spent the better part of the game in the President's Lounge downstairs where it was warmer and there were plenty of balloons to play with. She brought three of them home and has been wandering around with them ever since.

And then, as if winning today weren't enough, the men's basketball beat #6 Louisville last night in Vegas and are playing the #1 team in the nation, North Carolina, tonight. If we win this, it will be the greatest weekend in Cougar sports history in a long time! We love it!

Full of Thanks...and Pie

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, spending time at both of our parent's homes in Salt Lake. One tradition the Jensen family does is eating their pie the night before Thanksgiving so that you can actually enjoy it and not be so stuffed from Thanksgiving dinner that it's just another course. They call it Pie Night and invite families from their ward over for it. This year there were 12 different kinds of pies, including my favorite, key lime. I have a new favorite now, however, but it almost can't be called new since it tastes just like key lime. It's pink lemonade pie and it was delicious! Thanks for all the yumminess, Bob!Hyrum said you have to have at least 6 slices of pie or you can't leave, so he had to come through on the deal as well, and I don't think it was as easy as he'd thought. Here he is after "being stuffed to the rafters!" (Brian Regan)
Jeniann, Miya, Shelly, and Taylor enjoying their pieWe have so much to be thankful for this year (like every year) and I feel so truly grateful for the blessings heaped upon us by our Father in Heaven. I have the most wonderful husband, the cutest baby girl, awesome family who we love spending time with, wonderful friends (both old and new), a good education that helps me be a better mom, my hubby's education that he enjoys and that got us a good job, and especially the gospel of Jesus Christ that brings purpose and meaning to every other part of our lives. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Bring on Christmas!

Congrats to My Amazing Husband

I have to brag for a moment. My very smart, talented, good-looking husband just accepted a job offer with Bank of America! We will therefore be moving to Los Angeles, CA to work after he graduates in 6 months. We're so excited for this new adventure and feel really good about the decision. It does mean that we'll have to postpone buying a home for a couple of years since there's no way we'll ever afford a home there right now. But we'll probably only be there for a year and a half or so and then we'll go to Oregon, Washington, or Idaho after that and have a home there, I hope! We can't wait to be close to the beach, Disneyland, some family and friends, and still not too far from Utah! Great job on all your hard work to get us here! Sophie and I are so proud of you and we love you!!!

Gardner Village

We went to Gardner Village with Alison and Erin and their cute boys Jack and Bryson. I'd (ashamedly) never been there before and it was so fun to walk through the shops and get caught up on everyone's lives. I know Alison from Pendleton, OR and am so glad they live in Utah again so we can get together, and Erin is a high school friend of Joseph's who I've loved getting to know.

Sophie especially loved the pond with the ducks who waddled right up to us and nipped at my hands to get food. She said "du, du" all morning and couldn't stop looking at them. That's my little animal lover for you!

It was a great day! Thanks for the fun time, girls!

Back to School

My friend Debbie tagged me and here is the meme for this tag:
*Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It’s more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you’d also like to take. Tag five.*

I'm not sure that I'm going to totally follow the rules in that some of these classes won't "fix" my life, but instead I'm going to list classes that I'd take now if I could go Back To School:

Bowling 101--I thought I'd do the most frivolous first. The one class I always wanted to take at BYU that I never did was Bowling. I'm one of those bowlers who's good until my hand and wrist get sore, then I go downhill fast. (So basically my first game's good and my second isn't so hot.) I've always wanted to learn how to put spin on the ball (wish I knew that for tennis and ping pong, too) and I just want to get a Turkey just once in my life! I've come so close so many times and never done it. Joseph was signed up for a bowling class this semester and I was so sad he was getting to do it and I wasn't because I knew it would forever keep me from ever competing with him again (I'd list the number of times I've beat him at bowling but that wouldn't be nice :D), but sadly he had to drop it because of a conflict. So I may still have a fighting chance.

Cake Decorating 101--Another less serious class, but I've honestly wanted to do this forever, too, and need to just sign up and take the plunge. I wish my cousin Annie could teach me since she teaches classes at her local Michaels and is way talented. I would love to always be able to make my kids' birthday cakes, just the way they want them, and never have to buy one, so hopefully I'll get around to it sooner than later.

Culinary Arts 201--This is the one I would take with Debbie. She said, "I totally enjoy cooking a great deal and know my way around the kitchen. However I don’t ever experiment or know a lot without following a recipe. I don’t do the exotic ingredients (no gourmet cooking here please!) so if a recipe calls for it I generally don’t even try it. I’d love to get more ideas and tips to cook different meals for my family."
I totally agree there. Before I got married I cooked mostly only to survive and never got very gourmet because it's so boring cooking only for yourself. Since getting married I've learned to love cooking so much more, but I'm not one of those people who can open the cupboard and throw together an amazing meal with just the ingredients I see there without using a recipe. I know people who can do that and somehow their imaginations always come up with something incredibly yummy. I wish I could do that. I also want to learn to make Mexican food the way Joseph's mom, Bob, makes it. He loves her Mexican food and I need to learn to make it for him, especially the tamales, cuz Christmas just ain't Christmas without Bob's tamales.

Polish 301--I desperately wish I could keep up my Polish better, but reading the Book of Mormon out loud in Polish doesn't exactly keep one fluent (not that I ever was fluent because I would've had to live in Poland for a lot longer than 16 months to really get the language, especially the accent, down.) I need a class that will review all the grammar and cases and such, then really focus on conversation. When I returned to Poland after my mission I was pleasantly surprised at how easily it came back to me so I'd hope that would still be the case, but you just don't meet too many Poles in Utah who you can speak with. I guess we need to move to Chicago because I just don't want to lose this beautiful language. My brain is only really capable of holding one foreign language in my head at a time (I'm not like my brothers who can learn multiple languages and keep them all straight), so when I learned Polish it pushed the French right out and now I can only understand French but can't speak it, and I don't want that to happen in Polish, too. Sorry hon, but I don't think I'll try learning Portuguese anytime soon.

Photography 101--Here's another one I'm copying from Debbie, but she's much more advanced at this than I am. I would love to learn photography (which is not a desire even remotely influenced by the fact that in order to do it I'd have to get a really nice camera! :D Ah, I can't wait to be done with grad school!) I think it would be great to learn about lighting and techniques that would enable me to become a good photographer. Maybe an expensive hobby, but a fun one nonetheless.

Church History 302--Another class Joseph's auditing right now that I wish I could take with him is Church History by Susan Easton Black. She's such an incredible historian and I love how she just has all this information in her head that she can use to lecture, without any notes, and makes people and events come to life. Out of all the religion classes I took at BYU, the two that I really wish I could have taken and never could fit in are Church History and Pearl of Great Price. But right now I'd be content with taking any religion class again! I just love them all! I took the writings of Luke in the New Testament (the Book of Luke and The Acts) last year from Richard Holzapfel just for fun and wish I could continue taking that, but my calling's made that a little more difficult. My brother Peter would laugh if he read this having recently done this himself, but I secretly want to teach early morning seminary so that I'm getting to learn and teach all those neat things they have for seminary. Okay, I know I can do that anyway, but it would be so much more fulfilling if I were helping someone else learn these things and not just doing it for myself. I guess that's one reason we have children though, eh?

Irish, Tap, and Clogging 401--If you know me well you know that I love these 3 kinds of dance. I've tapped since I was a little girl and love that you can do slower, stylized moves and dances (think Fred Astaire) as well as fast and fun stuff with tap. Clogging's the best workout I've ever had with dance and love that you can take just about any of your favorite songs and clog to it (if you're imagining a girl in a big, poofy, frilly, short skirt dancing to some hokey old music, that's not what I'm talking about!) And Irish is so graceful and beautiful and gives you calves of steel and I'd like to learn how to do more of it. I just wish I were dancing every day again and really miss it.

Creative Writing 202--I love to read and sometimes love to write but wish I could learn some things to make me a good writer. I always used to think I'd grow up to be Anne of Avolea and be a talented writer (even though she had a lot to learn about writing, as you know if you've ever read the books or even seen the movies) but then I took an English class for Elementary Ed. (my college major) and the teacher was so mean and she shot down everything I turned in and it really shook my confidence in my writing ability so I've never really tried it since. The only writing I ever do anymore is in my journal and on this blog, and I miss the creative writing I used to do with my students and would like to do it more.

Well, I think that's more than enough. If you made it all the way through then you did better than the majority of my family who read my weekly family emails (not to name any names, Peter! :D) That was fun to do and now you get the chance if you want it! I'll tag Alison, Annie Leavitt, Erin, Holly, and Meridith, and anyone else who wants to play!

We Know Our Animal Sounds

While she wouldn't do any sounds on the tape but one, Sophie really does know quite a few animal sounds. Animals are her very favorite thing, next to balls of course. If a book has an animal in it, Sophie will find it and isn't satisfied until I've done the animal's sound at least 48 times. (Which is so fun when she wants to know what a zebra and giraffe say. Any ideas?!) But this is by far the best "sound" Sophie knows how to make. Enjoy our school spirit. :)

Look How Much I've Grown

Here's a comparison of Sophie at Halloween from this year to last year.

Here's Sophie in her little Halloween outfit:

October 2006

October 2007

Here's Sophie in her Halloween costume:

2006

2007

Twirling...sort of

We were listening to church music on Sunday when Sophie started twirling around the living room. She'd never done that before, so I grabbed the camera, and of course she stopped and wouldn't do any more. Plus she seemed to be getting a little dizzy, so probably it's a good thing she stopped. :) Hopefully we can catch her doing it again sometime and get a better video to share.

The Evolution of a Meal with a Toddler

I was feeding Sophie her oatmeal for breakfast and after a few bites she took the spoon out of my hand and put it in her mouth herself. That's the first time she's fed herself with a spoon! So we kept that up for a while until I decided to see what she'd do if she had the bowl in front of her, too. She could get the oatmeal on the spoon if I helped her, then she would put it in her mouth and that's how it went for a little while. But it didn't last long. How quickly things deteriorate with a toddler. :)
It became much too much work to put the food on the spoon, so we abandoned that and went straight for the oatmeal with our hands.
Once we got down far enough and our tummy was full, we resorted to just playing with the oatmeal.
When that got old we just played with the bowl!
It even went on our head!

Mmmm, oatemal-flavored hair! That's the best! Good thing we took a bath right after breakfast!

Happy Halloween

Sophie got a bunny costume for Halloween from her Grandma Lamb on her birthday, so I decided that I wanted the whole family to dress up in a theme around that bunny idea. My first thought was that Sophie could be Little Bunny Foo-Foo, I would be the "Foxy" Fairy, and that would naturally leave Joseph to be the Mouse that gets bopped on the head. But somebody didn't like that idea very much (and by "didn't like" I mean he responded with "There's no way you will ever get me to dress up like a mouse!") so I had to come up with something different. Instead Joseph became a magician, I was his assistant, and Sophie was the little bunny we pulled out of the black hat. We had fun with it and I think it turned out well, even if I didn't get to wear a tiara and carry a wand. I guess some people just don't think it's fun to look totally ridiculous in front of all their friends and professors--weird!

Creating Your Own Template

So I have finally discovered how you can create your own template for your blog. I got step by step directions from a very nice girl I've never met named Suzanne. She will send them to you as well if you would like to learn how to change your blog's background. Her email is zanny06@hotmail.com and the directions she sends are clear and easy to follow, though it does take some time to do. I must give credit for the paper I used for my blog design to ShabbyPrincess who always has such cute things. So go and have fun experimenting with your backgrounds if you want. It's lots of fun!

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken by the spouse of an MBA student and were so impressed by how good she is. Hey, anyone who can make me look good must be pretty talented! We love how they turned out and are having a hard time deciding which one to blow up and make this year's family picture. Any input from any of you?