The Jensen Five

Weekend in San Diego

2012-01-29T22:51:00.005-07:00

Gramma and Grampa Lamb were staying at a time share in San Diego one weekend so we went down to visit them and visited Sea World together while they were here.

It was fun to see all the Halloween decorations up everywhere, even if all the pumpkins looked like sea animals.

Ride 'em, Cowgirl!

We were joined by the OC Lambs which always makes life more fun for Sophie and Avery because they love their cousins!

I love that my girls aren't afraid to touch slimy, slippery, crawly things. I don't even know what exactly this was that they brought out for the kids to see, but it was some lizard/snake hybrid and Sophie pet it like she'd pet a dog.

William wanted to do everything the big kids were doing, including reaching into the tide pools to touch the starfish. He does not like being left behind.

Avery couldn't get enough of this place. She just had a hard time remembering to keep the poor starfish under water!

I wish we lived closer to Sea World because I think we'd have an annual pass every year. It's so much fun!

We took the kids to the play area and William loved this place with all the big, soft blocks to throw around.

We went on a day that was hardly busy at all so the girls didn't even have to wait in line to get a picture with Grover and Elmo. "I, Lovable, Furry Old Grover am the Monster at the end of the book!" One of our favorites.

Mom and Dad's condo was right on the beach so we checked that out later that same day. The water was cold but the sand was perfect!

And the view was awesome. William loved feeling the sand between his toes.

The girls loved building sand castles and digging holes.

Will could've chased these birds all day long.

The kids alternated between running from the waves and filling up their buckets with water for their sand castle moat.

Will is just starting to take steps and tries to do it on his own even though he really shouldn't.

What a fun day we had in San Diego! Let's do it again soon!

Frankenstein and other "Monsters"

2012-01-25T13:57:00.004-07:00

We carved pumpkins for FHE the week before Halloween.

Will really got into pulling the guts out of them but the girls were more grossed out by the slimy insides this year than before. They designed the faces and mom did the cutting. Sophie nicknamed hers Frankenstein, and Avery called hers one of the crazy names she pulls out of thin air for all her dolls and stuffed animals (think "Ahktu" and "Keko" and things like that.)

The girls were told to wear costumes to gymnastics the week of Halloween, but I didn't think they'd fare very well in their costumes so we opted to wear our little Mexican senioritas dresses that Joseph and I got for them in Mazatlan instead.

In the middle of all the Halloween craziness Will cut his first two teeth. They only took (and I am not exaggerating) 6 months to come in. More miserable for baby or mom? It's a toss up (though I will claim it was worse for me. ALL his teeth have taken forever to come in. I can see them under the surface for months before they finally poke through, and he whines and cries about them often. Worst teether of my 3.)

Good thing he's cute! God must've known he'd need to be adorable so I wouldn't trade him in for a lower maintenance model. :)

Sophie was Pippi Longstocking for Halloween this year. We'd read the book a few months before and she thought that would be a fun costume to do with her naturally red hair. I used pipe cleaners to stick the braids out, and my friend lent me her daughter's striped tights and dress that I sewed patches on. Easy peasy. Sophie insisted on carrying her Pippi doll around with her everywhere as part of her costume.

Avery was a cute little Ladybug this year. Pipe cleaners for antennae, another borrowed costume, but the smile is 100% hers.

We hosted a Halloween party at our house for our moms group. So many cute kiddos in their cute costumes.

My favorite part about this picture is Avery's wink. Ever since she learned to wink she does it all the time, especially when she's pointing to something. She'll wink the eye of the arm she's using to point and it's so cute.

Here are the babies of the group. Will was a dragon along with his buddy, and then there was a Flounder as well.

We played a game where the kids had to try to eat a donut off a string, without using any hands. I didn't think eating just one would be hard enough so I tied two to each string, and that was way too hard for most of the kids. Sophie eventually got both off, but I think Avery had to cheat to eat it.

They were so funny to watch, and got chocolate all over their faces.

We all dressed up for the ward Halloween trunk or treat. Joseph and I reprised our Daphne & Shaggy costumes.

By the time we got to the actual day of Halloween the kids had worn their costumes so many times. But they didn't mind donning them once more for trick or treating with cousins. We only hit a few houses in Ladera Ranch, Peter and Abby's neighbors who especially wanted to see the kids all dressed up.

Gramma and Grampa Lamb were in town too which was extra fun!

We celebrated Peter's "special" birthday, 31 on the 31st, with a fun little party. These 6 cousins sure love each other!

BBQ on the Beach

2012-01-21T17:14:00.005-07:00

We had been wanting to have a BBQ on the beach all summer and finally got to it in October. It was a little colder by then than we would've liked, but we haven't forgotten our Utah roots yet and grew a thicker skin.

We invited the Lambs to join us. The kids loved watching the dads build a fire, and then they loved roasting hot dogs and marshmallows and Starbursts over it. We all ate way too much junk and had a great time.

We watched a pretty sunset and the kids played on the play ground nearby. They've been begging to have another BBQ on the beach ever since, so hopefully we'll get back there again soon!

Sophie Turns 5!

2012-01-15T22:54:00.006-07:00

Our oldest turned 5 in October!

Here's the birthday girl at school with her birthday crown and her birthday dress on.

We had a family celebration on her actual birthday, and then the next day she had her friend party.

I hadn't made her cake yet on her actual birthday, so she got to blow out candles on the leftover rice crispy treats that I'd taken to her class that morning.

Sophie wanted a Hello Kitty party which was a nice 'n easy theme to do. I ordered a bounce house because she had invited almost 20 kids (yeah, we'll never do that again!) so I figured the party would go a lot smoother if they spent most of their time playing on that. Of course the universe heard my plans and laughed and decided to send rain on the day of her party, even though it usually only rains maybe a dozen times out of the entire year here. I had them bring it and set it up anyway and just warned all the moms that we'd save it for the end, but we'd be getting wet! And then I had to scramble to figure out some games to play for the rest of the party.

(Cousin Nona in the balloons--so cute!) We played "Pass the Hello Kitty" and "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty" and a few other games that were hard to do with us all crammed into our living room, but we did it. Then it was time for cake!

I loved making this Hello Kitty cake for Sophie. It was so easy and fun to do.

Aunt Abby did Sophie's hair for the party and it turned out so cute.

Here's the best picture I got of all Sophie's guests. Sophie invited a few friends from school, friends from our current ward and old ward at church, and friends from our play group, so it was a full house!

Once we finally got to the bounce house everyone was having a blast, despite it being cold and wet!

Here's cousin Gabe flashing a smile at the bottom of the slide.

Will liked it, too, as long as I was holding him.

I think the birthday girl had a fun time at her party and it was a success (phew!)

Here's one of the presents she got from her birthday after the girls assembled it together for the first time. They love, love, love, love their Disney princesses and pretend to be them all the time! I love my pretty princesses, too! Happy Birthday, Sophie Girl!

More Reunions

2012-01-15T22:19:00.002-07:00

I got to take a trip in October to Utah for my 10-year mission reunion.

I have a hard time believing I've really been home for 10 years from Poland, but it's true. My Mission Presidents, the Toblers, some of the greatest people alive, hosted the reunion at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (where I used to work in catering...the smell in that place alone brought back so many memories!) There were quite a few of us from the 3 years that the Toblers served in Poland who flew in from all over the country to attend.

It was wonderful to see so many old friends, especially the sisters. Only 2 of my companions were there, Sis. Truman (my trainer) and Sis. Merrill. We had so many adventures together and it was fun to reminisce a little bit. (Pictured above are Jody Richards , Karene Olsen Hansen, Suzy Truman Wirth, and Jen Yorgason Thatcher.)

While I was in Utah I also got together with my old roommates from Turnberry. We met up at Bev's cute home with all our kiddos, except that I had only brought Will while Joseph stayed home with Sophie and Avery. Between the 3 of us we have 9 children...not bad!

(Tobi, me, Bev, and Danna) It doesn't seem like it was 7 years ago that we were all living together. And of course we all still look the same as we did then! (right? right?!) Love you ladies!

Our Home

2012-01-10T22:33:00.004-07:00

I've been meaning to post pics of our house for forever, so here they are at last. And of course they're already outdated since we've changed a few things up since, but these will have to suffice for now.

The living room. I'm taking this picture looking into the living room from the front door, so this is what you see as you walk in. The love sac has since been replaced by a couch, but otherwise this is pretty much how it looks.

This is the opposite wall in the living room. All the window treatments in the house were left by the previous owners so I will be changing them eventually, but they're there to stay for the time being.

The living room is really open and it runs into the dining area which makes it feel a lot bigger than the house really is. Someday I'll actually have a matching table and chairs that I love.

To the right of the dining area is the kitchen. I love my kitchen, which is good since I spend about 95% of my time there.

Off of the kitchen is the laundry room. I love that it's separate but accessible (separate but equal?)

If you go back to the front door and go straight instead of left, you'll head down the hallway to the bedrooms. This is the girls' room (or half of it at least). Once Will is too big for his crib we'll give him this toddler bed and get the girls a bunk bed. I can't wait for how that will open up their room even more, and they're really excited for it too. I also love how light their room stays with the 2 windows.

This is the kids'/guest bath.

Here is Will's room. I have big plans for this room, like a new paint color and a chair rail if I figure out how to do it on my own.

And here is our bedroom. It's not huge, but since you really don't spend much time in your room except for sleeping, I'm okay with it not being enormous. It just leaves more space for the living area of the house which I'd rather have anyway.

And here's our bathroom. It's really only a 2-butt bathroom with a shower, pedestal sink, and toilet, but again, I don't need a big master bath, at least not right now. Someday a jetted tub will be nice to have again, but for now we love our small bath. There used to be a door there into the laundry room so you could run laps round and round through the house, but luckily the previous owners had the sense to close it off. It keeps our bathroom more off-limits to the kids.

I know we will outgrow this place someday, but for now it is absolutely the perfect size (so much easier to clean!) and perfect house for our family. We love it and it really feels like our home. We haven't had one day of buyer's remorse, thank goodness; we just love being here. I forgot to post the back yard, but there have already been other pics of it anyway, so they'll have to do. Home Sweet Home!

The L.A. County Fair 2011 edition

2012-01-10T22:10:00.002-07:00

I took Avery and Will to the L.A. County Fair one morning with friends from our moms group. There were a lot of kids to keep track of but we had a great time with everyone.

They thought these little things to pose in were so fun.

Avery liked "milking" the cow.

We went into the petting zoo to see the goats and sheep. Fortunately none of the goats nipped her this time, and I think she's repressed the memory of that happening 2 years ago so she wasn't scared of them. They're such aggressive little buggers, though!

They also had a cool dinosaur exhibit this year. Both Avery and Sophie are really into dinosaurs right now (I think they have all 8 "Land Before Time" movies memorized!)

This T-Rex (or "Sharp Tooth" as the girls like to call it) moved and everything, but we weren't scared!

Queen Avery at court. It was a lot of fun and Mama got her workout pushing the stroller all over the park that day.

Family Pictures 2011

2012-01-07T00:37:00.020-07:00

We took two sets of family pictures this year. The first was in a studio, and we got these 3 pictures from that sitting:

This made the wall because it was the one where we were all looking and smiling.

I love this of the kids.

And we did this one just for fun. Go Cougars!

Then in the fall our friend Kisa, who is starting up her photography business and wants to build her portfolio, was kind enough to take some outdoor pictures of our family. (You can find her blog at www.kisamaephotography.blogspot.com if you're interested. She's awesome!)

Sophie Jo (5 years old)

Avery Jane (3 yrs. old)

William Julius (1 year old)

For the most part these 3 love each other and are great friends. What lucky parents we are!

Love these pink boots!

Super Baby!

Learning to walk

The girls :)

Initially we thought we'd just have her shoot the kids, but we decided since we were all there we might as well get the whole fam damily, too. Here was our Christmas card shot.

I love this boy!

Da boyz :)

Our better sides?

"Dip, Baby, Dip!"

1 year old!

The first of many jerseys for this boy? Goooooo Jensens!

And there you have it. Thanks again, Kisa! We sure had fun!

A Fall Review

2012-01-06T14:15:00.005-07:00

Our fall weather couldn't have been nicer, and we ate outside almost every night until probably the end of October. We also swam well into the end of it; only Sophie starting school really slowed us down. This is why we pay the big bucks to live in SoCal. :) Here's a photolog of a little of our fall 2011.

Joseph put up the hammock he got on his mission in Brazil and there is almost constantly someone out in it, usually one of the kids. They love being swung until they can touch the patio roof. It's nice to have something to swing in since we still don't have a play set of any kind in our yard. The debate over whether to get a play structure or a trampoline for the back yard wages on.

I miss these chunky legs! Once Will got mobile the fat fell right off him. I loved having a baby with rolls! It just means more of him to love!

Sophie and Avery love to put on my clothes and clip clop around the house in my high heels. They're highly entertaining and keep me smiling!

Sophie has grown up so much this past year. I bet I'll write that sentence every year until she's 18, but I just can't get over how fast these kids change! Sometimes I'm grateful for the changes when they're going through a particularly frustrating phase, for example, but usually I find myself wishing I could freeze them as they are. Sophie's imagination has taken off and she not only uses it in her play but she can now translate it to paper. She has become quite the creative artist (where before it was a chore for her to scribble on paper) and draws pictures of rainbows, mermaids, flowers, and especially all of us as stick figures all day long. She loves writing all our names all over everything she draws, too. She sets a great example for her younger brother and sister and we're so lucky to have her be our #1.

Avery has always loved to draw but is also getting more creative with it since seeing her sister's latest ideas. She's not as destructive as she's been in the past, it's more that she's clumsy and a disaster-magnet so she still makes messes everywhere she goes, it's just more unintentional than it's been before. She loves to play games and is really good at Go Fish, Matching, and Crazy 8's, as well as putting together puzzles. She's got a great smile she loves to flash and the mischievous twinkle in her eye hasn't dimmed at all, which I actually love. While I no longer use her nickname "Peanut" very often (much to Joseph's delight), she still is our skinny little Peanut and we sure love this "middle child."

Now that Sophie's gone to school every morning I get to spend a lot of one on one time with Avery which I love. Will naps and Avery and I play games and read books together. But she's also really good at playing by herself which is nice so that I can also get things done that I need to do. She loves it when I let her have play dates and loves her friend Shea who will play dress up and do all sorts of other crazy things with her.

William started crawling right before the 9 month mark, and he's never turning back. He loves the independence it gives him and that instead of staying in one place whining for me, he can actually come get me now.

This is a view I look at dozens of times every day. He wants to be held all day long and is constantly crawling up me or holding onto my legs until I give in and pick him up. I'm sad I can literally see him changing into a toddler almost over night and am already mourning the loss of his babyhood, but 9 months is also one of my favorite stages ever so I won't complain too loud.

Sophie loves to be in the garden and picked me this bouquet of flowers all by herself one day while working outside with Joseph.

Sophie and I go head-to-head on a lot of things because we're so alike, but she can also be so sweet and lovable, too. It's a good thing or I might have sold her off to the gypsies years ago! (I jest, Mom, I jest!)

Will thinks he's one of the big kids and tries to do the things he sees them do. Sometimes this results in a few goose eggs on the head and such, but usually he's either able to actually do them (always surprising to me) or he realizes he's way in over his head and backs down. Wait a year, Buddy, and you'll be in there with the champs!

(Transitional) Kindergarten

2012-01-04T22:39:00.005-07:00

(I know school started eons ago and that I'm still way behind on these blog posts, but it's one of my New Year's resolutions to get caught up on this blog and stay caught up because I turn them into our family scrapbooks/journals, so I'm going to do it!)

Sophie started a Transitional Kindergarten class in September. It's transitional because she's an October birthday so she could've gone to regular Kindergarten this year, but we decided to let her wait one more year to go next year instead, and because the state has finally changed their cut-off date for Kinder to match the rest of the country (about time!), they are offering these transitional kindergartens for all the kids who have birthdays in the October to December window and who will be effected by this date change. (If you want a more in-depth explanation of what it is, I can give it to you.) Suffice it to say that we jumped at the chance to do a Pre-K type class for free rather than put Sophie back in another year of expensive pre-school, and we're so glad we managed to get her in!

I think it's safe to say that Sophie loves her class. She has enjoyed it from the start and is doing really well. She was so excited to pose for her first day of school pics and made sure I got a shot of her back pack that she was excited about, too. Pink and Princesses just about sum up Sophie's loves in life.

Here's her classroom. This Kindergarten class does all the same things essentially as the other Kindergarten classes, just at a less accelerated rate. At the end of it we could still opt to put her in 1st grade next year, but we think it'll be best to let her be older in her grade rather than so young, and we're trying really hard to look ahead to when she's a teen and not make her be the last to drive and date. Plus, I don't want her going off to college at 17! We feel good about our decision and she's over the moon about getting to do another year of Kindergarten next year, although it'll be at the school that's right next to our house. I can't wait to not have to drive her 15 minutes both ways twice a day anymore!

Her teacher, Mrs. H, is wonderful and a saint. She has 24 of these just-barely-5-yr. olds, most of whom are rowdy boys, and she definitely has her hands full. I've been volunteering in the class, though, and have been impressed with how she handles them all and what a great teacher she is.

Fortunately Sophie already knew 2 other kids in her class which helped with the 1st day jitters. Macy was in her pre-school class last year, and the other kid is a boy who is also in her class at church. It was nice for me to already know 2 other moms as well.

Oops, I guess this picture really didn't turn out. Sophie's name is up there somewhere!

One of the first days of school they had a t-shirt day where they all wore their favorite t-shirts and then colored a t-shirt of their real t-shirt and marched in a parade around the school. Sophie's choice was her pink (of course!) Tinkerbell t-shirt.

She thought she looked particularly cute on this day of school and begged me to take her picture on the doorstep for this day as well.

One of the unique parts about this kind of a class is that all the kids had their birthdays between Sept. 2nd and December 2nd. So poor Mrs. H had to endure one birthday party at school after another for 3 straight months. (And we got an invitation to someone's birthday party almost every single week, and sometimes 2 or 3 a week!) But the nice thing is that they're all done and she doesn't have to do anymore this year! Sophie asked me to bring Capri Suns and pink rice crispy treats (just like last year) for her birthday treat for her class.

This is her class on Halloween day. Sophie was Pippi Longstocking and nobody else in the class had ever heard of her, but some older kids at school and all the teachers sure knew who she was!

This is the class at their Thanksgiving celebration with the turkeys they made.

I love that Mrs. H always has them do a silly picture after the serious one, except that I do not like Sophie's face that she always pulls now whenever it's a silly picture. Not attractive in the least.

My favorite part about this picture is how Sophie is crossing her heart. She's not the only one to have it backwards, but she's the cutest one! (Oh, and a note about the boy next to her with the curly hair. Sophie told me that she asked him to be her boyfriend, and when I explained that we don't have boyfriends until we're in college, she replied, "Not for now, Mom! It's for when we're grown up!" I don't know how she ever heard about boyfriends, but I'm glad that at least she already figured out that you don't have them in Kindergarten! And I think the reason she picked him is because of his curly, blonde hair. I think he's adorable, too!)

Mom's 60th Birthday Party

2011-11-30T23:52:00.021-07:00

The Lamb Family came together in August to celebrate a very important birthday of a very important woman...our Mom. And the best part was that she didn't even know we would be celebrating with her!

We started planning a surprise birthday party for my Mom's 60th birthday when she turned 59, and we managed somehow to keep it a secret the whole year. That wasn't easy considering how many different places we were coming from and the pack of lies we had to tell Mom to keep her from guessing what we were up to, but it all paid off in the end.

We rented a beautiful home in Monterey, CA for the birthday weekend that fit the 18 of us quite nicely. We all got there early and made dinner, then we hid the cars so Mom wouldn't know what was up when they pulled in. Dad told Mom that they were going to a bed and breakfast alone, so when they got there we had all the lights out except the ones in the entry way and were hiding in the dark.

Once they were inside, we flipped on the lights, jumped out, and shouted, "Surprise!" Mom put her hand over her heart, sort of slumped against the wall in shock for a bit, and finally regained her composure to greet each of her family. It was awesome.

She said she hadn't suspected anything at all, so we were victorious. Sophie could hardly contain herself long enough to hide she was so excited about our plot to surprise Gramma.

The home we rented was not just big and beautiful, it had a few great amenities added on as well, like this hot tub we enjoyed a couple times.

The kids found the shot glasses to be the perfect size for celebrating. I promise that's just juice they're drinking. :)

We all walked down to the pier for lunch the next afternoon.

It was a beautiful day and a nice walk. I could definitely see Monterey's charm right away.

The girls loved seeing the pelicans on the rocks and all the boats in the water.

We had fish for lunch but Will's favorite part was being entertained by Uncle Leo. He's 9 months old here and so much fun.

Will's first tutorial in how to blow straws.

"I got it! I got it! No, I don't."

Wow, Birthday Girl, you're looking hot! :) What a clown. Can you see where we all get it? At least we come by it honestly.

One of the funnest parts of our day was going to the Dennis the Menace playground. It had so many unique things to play on.

When we parked at the play ground we saw this sign...

...and suddenly we all had limb failure! (See what I mean about the goofiness? It's so genetic.)

William impersonating Uncle Geoff. I think he wore it well.

Will was a happy boy to lounge in his stroller while we pushed him all over the park and the city. Babies have it so rough!

A bridge spanning the width of the park was the first order of business. The kids loved trying to keep away from the troll underneath, a.k.a. Uncle Peter.

A fun twisty slide for Sophie.

Avery and Gabe mastered it, too. This was the same location as the maze in the bushes where Joseph had a great idea to play one of our favorite games, Sharks and Minnows. You had to get from one side of the maze to the other without the person in the middle tagging you, and if you do get tagged you are stuck in that spot and have to tag others who come through. The last one untagged wins. It was so much fun.

Everyone had a turn down the long green slides, even Gramma.

But the best slide of all was this roller slide. Sophie and Avery loved it and went many, many times with various people and groups.

Here was our attempt at a train. It was fun until we went over the bump that I didn't know existed in the middle. That one hurt.

Apparently Gramma didn't know about it, either. She took the brunt of it while protecting Avery's little bum.

Austin got to have a turn with Grampa.

That night we had dinner back at the house and Uncle Scott attempted to take a nap while it was being made. This is apparently what happens to people who try to nap when we don't want them to. It wasn't the poor guy's fault that this couch was his bedroom and he didn't get very good sleep at night on it.

After dinner we gave Gramma her birthday presents.

I had decided many months before that I wanted to make a book for my Mom for her birthday, filled with memories and tributes from her friends and family from all throughout her life. I received so many thoughtful contributions to her book and was able to include about 75 entries from people who love and wanted to honor my Mother for the amazing woman that she is. It included pictures from her life and spanned almost as many pages as her age. It was a great honor to be able to compile all the nice things people said about her. I learned a lot about her and it made me want to be a better mother, wife, and person.

I made this chocolate cake topped with strawberries for her birthday cake.

The 4 oldest grandkids insisted on helping Gramma blow out her candles after she made her wish. Then we played a game patterned after "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" all about Mom's life to see which of her family knows her best. No one got a million bucks, but several of her kids answered enough questions correctly to get close.

The next day we took a hike along a trail out to Point Lobos to see the ocean and the seals on the rocks.

We sang camp songs as we went and the kids were real troopers, especially on the way in. On the way out several of them got shoulder rides from kind uncles like Uncle Jonny because their little legs were worn out.

What handsome boys I have!

Sophie sure has great uncles!

My two goofballs.

Okay, so they come by it honestly, too. This is the pic we should've used on this year's Christmas card!

Will knows how to cheese it up for sure!

Here are the newlyweds, the Almeidas. They had just returned from finishing Leo's Masters of Accountancy program at Notre Dame.

The whole gang with the seal rocks behind us.

We drove to Pebble Beach not far from Point Lobos and saw the famous golf course peeking up over it.

Will loved the sand and miraculously didn't even put much of it in his mouth!

It was a little too cold to get in the water so we mostly stayed dry, but the highlight of the beach was running down the sandy hill at full speed. The sand was so fine it felt awesome to run in and it didn't hurt if you fell.

And sadly there were several people who wanted to make sure we fell. Saboteurs Scott and Peter waited for us at the bottom and took out as many of us as they could. Not even my Mom escaped! We thought we were safe because we had children with us, but oh, no, they still came after us.

Peter took out my Mom while Joseph kept Austin up and I barely kept Avery from falling.

I made it safely to the bottom where Scott finally ambushed me and I got a mouthful of sand as a prize.

Here's another brave group of runners, considering what they just saw happen to us.

Scott's attempt to flatten Joseph was foiled when Joseph slid to safety.

So he went after Peter instead and was victorious.

The sand was so soft and forgiving that Abby, Peter, and Scott even did back handsprings down the hill.
Sophie stuck with cartwheels.

What a cute little gymnast.

Sophie and Avery were also the only ones crazy enough to don swimsuits and go in the water. They really only got their feet wet as they ran from the waves, but it was still cold.

Will was content to sit with Daddy and have his nap.

The girls wrote me a note in the sand: "Sophie and Avery Love Mama."

After we made it back home and had dinner and a few people got in some hot tubbing, we turned on 6 songs that represented each of the 6 decades my Mom has lived in.

Peter and Abby still know how to groove.

Joseph and I have a few moves of our own.

The favorite song of the night was when everyone threw their hands in the air and danced to "Firework", a favorite of the grandkids.

Dance parties like this are becoming a Lamb family tradition. I love how Joseph and I have Sophie between us, and Jamie and Jonny have Andrew between them. :)

We capped off the night and the vacation with a game of "Chubby Bunny" at Mom's insistence. We played it once when I was younger and have so many fond memories of white ooze spilling out of each of our mouths that she wanted to do it for old time's sake. Sophie was a fan of this strange new ritual, even if she only managed to fit one marshmallow in her mouth.

Leo is showing us that he has 7 large marshmallows in his mouth.

Who won? It was a 3-way tie between Scott, Leo, and Joseph who each fit 8 marshmallows in their mouths while still being able to (sort of) say "Chubby Bunny". I officially give you the biggest mouths of the family!

We had such a wonderful time being together and celebrating a great lady. Thanks for letting us fete you, Mom! We love you! Happy Birthday!

Roommate Reunion!

2011-11-30T22:42:00.003-07:00

In August I was lucky enough to spend a few days with some college roommates from my first couple years at BYU.

We met in the DT dorms in S Hall in 1997 and became fast friends, then moved in together the next year at Liberty Square. It had been much too long since we'd all been together, so Alyssa flew in from London, Mel from Atlanta, and Sarah took a break from running Mitt Romney's campaign in Las Vegas to join us. We met up in Newport Beach for a few days of fun in the sun.

Tonya wasn't able to join us for the entire time but we did get to see her (and her adorable kids) for a little while.

It was great to reminisce about all the silly things we did back in the day. Man, was I ever dumb (and probably still am, but don't tell me if you agree.) :)

We spent a little time window shopping the first day in the cute little shops in Newport where I scored this awesome sun hat.

Then we drove to Long Beach and hopped on a ferry to Catalina Island.

William thought it was fun to ride on the big boat. Yes, he was the boy who crashed our girl time, but I couldn't leave him yet so he got to come on our trip. Thankfully everyone was a good sport about having a baby along for the ride.

Catalina was beautiful. I'd never been there before and it's easy to see why it was the playground of the movie stars back in the day.

We finally got some beach time while we were there. Will's favorite part of the adventure was, of course, the smoothies. Auntie Sarah got it for him and Auntie Melissa fed him the whipped topping, so he was in heaven. I had so much fun getting caught up with great friends and can't wait for the next reunion! Hopefully it won't take another several years for it to happen! Love you, Girlies!

Sweet Watermelon Summer

2011-11-02T11:33:00.006-07:00

We had a great summer. We moved, of course, so it wasn't exactly stress free, but it was fun, partially because of our new home.

We discovered that this is our watermelon boy. And our strawberry boy, and our grapes boy, and our banana boy. Basically, this kid loves fruit. Takes after his mom...and dad.

We love our new home. We ate outside on our patio every single evening, enjoying the warm summer nights as we rolled in the grass and watched the hummingbirds drink from our flowers.

We planted a few things in our garden including cucumbers, tomatillos, basil, tomatoes, oregano, and watermelon. We were surprised how many things grew so well, including this big watermelon. Our plant only gave us the one, but we were grateful to get it, and so big!

To say the girls were excited about it would be the understatement of the year. They monitored its progress every day and were overjoyed when we finally proclaimed that it was large enough and could be picked. We were especially excited because we'd seen on the tag when we planted it that it was supposed to be yellow inside. We couldn't wait to find out if it was true.

Sure enough, it was in fact a yellow watermelon. It tasted every bit as juicy and delicious as a red one, and probably more so because we grew it ourselves. It was awesome. The other fun discovery for the girls this summer was when I paired the home grown tomatoes with the basil. They thought that was fantastic, and Sophie decided that sometime we needed to make the tomatoes into soup and put basil with it. Imagine her surprise when I showed her some the next time we were at Costco. "Someone thought of my idea!" she said. It was pretty funny. I love eating fresh yummies from our very own backyard!

We did a lot of other fun stuff this summer, including a birthday party at a bounce house place for my friend Tanya's daughter Erica.

(And if you're wondering why William looks so feminine and petite in this picture it's because it's his cousin Nona. I was watching her for the afternoon when we went to the birthday party. She is so cute and has the best smile on the planet.)

Well, except maybe for this one. I'm biased, but his grin when he sees Momma is pretty hard to beat in my opinion. Will was pretty excited to get in on the slide action and was a definite fan, so long as his daddy was going with him. Can you tell he doesn't miss many meals?

We were excited we had our first official house guests in our new home. Our friends the Bowns's game to visit for a couple of days and our girls really hit it off. They still ask when Jules and Lorien are coming back to play.

It took a couple silly pictures to get one serious one where everyone was looking...

...but we finally managed it. We had a blast with you here, so thanks for making the trip to Disneyland so we could see you!

I'm missing the summer already, so it's a good thing they come around every year!

Avery turns 3!

2011-10-28T21:23:00.006-07:00

Avery turned 3 on July 4th, 2011.

I decided to make her a rainbow cake and this is the finished product. The outside wasn't my favorite, but the inside was awesome.

This is what the inside looked like before it was baked. You can see it after it was baked at the end of the post.

We started the day with a parade in Avery's honor (or at least that's what she thought! She still doesn't know that all the cool things the community does on the 4th of July aren't just for her birthday, and we're going to keep it that way for as long as possible.) The kids collected a ton of candy.

Then I let the girls do some finger painting...with frosting. I had a bunch of leftover frosting from Avery's cake so I let them dig into that and make some pictures. Avery preferred to paint herself rather than the paper, of course.

In the afternoon we all went to a fun place for kids where there were roller coasters and bumper cars and carousels...and a diner. Avery and I got a hot dog and soda at the counter together. I'm so glad I got to be her date on her birthday!

Grandma Jensen threw a great birthday party complete with delicious food and some of the people Avery loves best from both sides of her family. She couldn't wait to tear into her gifts and loved all of them.

She was very excited about her Rapunzel doll.

And her Princess book kept her entertained the entire drive home from Utah to California. Anything that has music is a hit with Avery.

Then she blew out her candles and we cut open the cake.

And this is what it looked like on the inside! Rainbow inside and out. She loved it.

We hope you had a wonderful day, Avery Jane! Thanks for being our sweet 3-year old girl and for all the laughter and smiles you bring to our family every day. We love you!

(Then we ended the day with firecrackers...still for her of course. Both girls loved them.)

Happy Fourth of July! 2 great ladies were born this day...America and Avery!

Julie and Leo's Wedding

2011-09-01T14:30:00.014-07:00

My little (and only) sis married the love of her life in June in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a beautiful day.

Leo is a great guy and we're very happy to have him in the family. We like that he has a little bit of a dramatic flair to him. :)

They were married in the Salt Lake Temple with all their friends and family present, including Leo's family who came all the way from Brazil for the big day.

The Lamb Fam...all 18 (and a half) of us.

When did we all grow up?! 4 down, 2 to go!

Julie and Leo were married by Grandpa Lamb who has now married all of us except Peter and Abby (who were instead married by some guy you might have heard of...President Thomas S. Monson!)

Sophie thought Julie was such a beautiful bride...and she was.

Avery saw everyone snapping pictures and didn't want to be left out, so she begged to take a few of her own. The real photographer of the day snagged a picture of her in action.

Sophie and Avery with their favorite Austin and Gabe. These 4 sure love each other and I hope they always will be close!

This is definitely one of my favorite pictures from the day.

Here's my Grandpa Austin with several of his great-grandchildren.

The night before the wedding we had a wedding dinner. Joseph and I sang the customary song we re-write for the couple to tell their story. This time it was Taylor Swift's "Love Story" ("He knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said, 'Marry me, Julie!'" Couldn't be more perfect, could it?).

Afterward we got a picture of all the newest grandbabies on my Mom's side, starting with Will at 8 months down to little Natalie Austin who's only a few days old here.

The reception was held at Carmelle Reception Center and they did a fabulous job. The girls were especially enamored with the floor to ceiling mirrors that they could pose in front of in their purple flower girl dresses and twirl to their heart's content.

The boys were also very handsome this evening, and I especially loved Will's little suit. He looked so dapper in it.

I love this shot of the 6 grandkids with the bride and groom. Sophie's face is priceless, and Will kept looking up at Julie because he couldn't figure out why she looked so much like his mama but clearly not enough.

Here they all are together, and smiling too!

Three...

Two...

One.

FIVE!

The dessert at the reception was a delicious crepe with a million toppings to choose from. How they knew that crepes is one of my girls' absolute most favorite creations on the earth I don't know, but I think Sophie and Avery ate 3 or 4 of them a piece.

The real side of this wedding couple. :) Awesome.

Awwww...

The bride with her attendants, showing some attitude. Without planning it we all popped the same leg--pretty funny.

Joseph and I always have a friendly bet about whether the couple will shove the cake or be nice. This time I said they would shove and he said they would be nice. I almost always win, but before they started cutting Joseph coached them to be nice over and over which I think is totally cheating. Julie was up first and she smeared frosting on Leo's nose first, then fed him the cake nicely, and Joseph maintains that he wins the bet. I think any smearing is definitely in the category of shoving, so I think nobody really won.

Funny story about the bouquet toss: Sophie was looking forward to this moment more than any other during the day because she so wanted to catch the bouquet. You can see she is out in front waiting with open arms. Julie tosses it, it flies up in the air and is on target to land right in Sophie's arms when all the big girls from behind jump over her and snatch the bouquet out of the air before she can reach it. She was devastated. She started to cry and I tried to comfort her, and then the others saw and gave the bouquet back to Julie to toss it again, but even though it went right to her it hit her in the face so she just started crying harder. I explained that I didn't want her to catch it anyway because that would mean she'd have to get married next and I'm not ready to let her go, so she was placated and now loves watching the video we have of the toss. It really is hilarious how her face goes from pure glee at almost catching the flowers, to dismay that they didn't land in her hands, to absolute defeat when she realizes they were stolen from her. It was hilarious.

The dancing portion of the night was my favorite part. Those Brazilians sure know how to cut a rug! They could totally move and they put all the rest of us to shame.

We still had fun anyway, though. Here Joseph and I are dancing to our wedding song, Nora Jones's "Come Away with Me". Will was trying to cut in here, but sorry, this is OUR song, honey.

Sophie and Avery loooove to dance! I think Avery had fun with her aunt Julie the beautiful bride, and we all had a great time at their wedding. Thanks for an awesome day, and congrats Julie and Leo Almeida! We love you!

Monkeying Around with Cousins

2011-08-09T16:52:00.002-07:00

We went to the Hogle Zoo with some cousins we don't get to see often enough. But now that they're living in Salt Lake instead of Atlanta we hope we'll get to see them a lot more often!

Sophie and Jensen became good buds on this trip and Avery had fun playing with Siesa. They enjoyed showing my kids all the real-looking dinosaurs they have around the zoo right now. Their favorite were the two who spit water at them, a perfect way to cool off on such a hot day.

One of the other highlights of the zoo was watching this giraffe take his looooong tongue and lick this pole all over. What he was trying to do we'll never know, but it was fascinating. The kids showed him how long their tongues are, but we wasn't impressed. All the kids had fun together, I had a great time chatting with Sidsie, and we can't wait to do it again. Thanks again for a fun day at the zoo!

Because it's been a long time...

2011-08-09T16:36:00.003-07:00

It's been a while I know...here are a few fun pics of the kids until I have more time to do a real update on our family.

William discovered my mom's pan collection at her house and was in heaven banging them around all day.

The best part is that now I know how much he loves them, that's where I plop him down in my kitchen as well when I'm trying to make dinner. He can keep himself occupied for quite a while with those makeshift drums.

We borrowed an idea we read about on our friend Jeni's blog and made some fun buildings and characters with marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti noodles for our FHE activity one night.

This is what our girls will do if Joseph has just mowed the lawn and left the green waste bin open for curious girls to discover.

At least they cleaned it all up pretty well. They're cute little stinkers for sure.

My Water Babies

2011-06-22T23:09:00.004-07:00

Have I mentioned that the girls love to be in the water? Both have ever since they were small babies.

Joseph caught some candid shots of the girls swimming before we moved (we miss the pool--sniff!) so here they are.

Avery loves to have her face in the water. Unusual, perhaps, but she kicks all over the pool with her face down in the water.

She also loves to kick all over on her back with her floaties on. It might take her a half hour to get from one end of the pool to the other kicking that way, but she gets there!

They are fearless, both of them. We were at a friend's pool today who has this big rock wall that Sophie jumped off of. Not to be outdone by her big sis, Avery got up and despite my protests flung herself off as well. And they both came up with the biggest smiles.

They sure love to play together which does a mama's heart good.

Anything Sophie can do, Avery can too.

I'd love if they both turned out to be swimmers someday like their mama was.

My YW

2011-06-22T22:15:00.003-07:00

At church I have had the honor the last 3 years of working with some amazing teenage girls. Since we moved to another part of town we are now attending church in a different ward and so I had to say goodbye to my church calling with these sweet girls.

Fortunately, that didn't mean goodbye to seeing them since we're only 10 minutes away. But since it's always fun to have a party, we decided to have a goodbye party of sorts at our community pool.

I am going to so miss working closely with these girls. They are truly all incredible. They are sweet, sassy, hilarious, kind, talented, and have become very good friends. Their nickname for me is "Grandma" (long story) but fortunately they had the tact to tell me that they consider me a big sister to them rather than a mom (since I could really only legitimately be a mother to the youngest of them, but even that would've been a stretch).

They always managed to put a smile on my face.

Here are 7 of my Young Women so 5 were missing in this picture. My girls think they are the bees knees and loved being included in any activity they could with the "big girls".

Thanks for making my calling so much fun! I already miss you all more than you can know!

I love you, Metzli, Aubrey, Megan, Emily, Katie, Veronica, Lauren, Rieley, Bekkah, Alyssa, Tara, and Kelley!

Firewomen

2011-06-22T17:50:00.005-07:00

We took a fun field trip to the fire station with our moms group.

Sophie got to drive the big truck.

And Avery took a turn as well.

They could have stared at that truck all day.

They even got to take turns shooting the hose.

Tons of foamy soap came out with the water which the kids then played in for the next half hour. They were covered from head to toe in big white bubbles and had a blast.

And just for fun, aren't the men in my life handsome? (even if my husband's hair dresser (ahem--me) was severely slacking in her hair cutting duties.)

Dancing Queens

2011-06-21T14:30:00.003-07:00

Avery and Sophie were so excited to dance together at their dance recital.

Their class isn't the most technical or best taught, but I think they could win awards for their costumes. The girls definitely felt like true ballerinas.

The dance was to "Skiddamarink".

All the girls in the class.

Avery might not have spent much time dancing at the recital, but at least she remembered to smile most of the time!

Sophie on the other hand was a model student, leading all the other girls through the dance like a champ.

Avery spent more time scratching her head than dancing, but she was sure cute!

Despite what you might think they weren't doing push-ups here. This was their favorite "dance move", called the Frog Dance.

We love our dancing queens!

Silly Kiddies

2011-06-21T13:53:00.002-07:00

Sophie and Avery went to their friend Hank's birthday party. I thought the theme was very clever: a Mustache Bash. All the kids got to wear mustaches, either glued on or painted on, and the girls thought it was hilarious.

Will is obsessed with his tongue lately. And as you can see, he also has a fondness for eating.

What a faker.

See?

The girls love love love to swim and are fearless in the water. They have these princess diving sticks that Avery throws in the water and Sophie dives after. The deep end of our pool is 5 ft. but Sophie can get down that far to get the princesses even. Avery's still in floaties for my sanity, but hopefully we will get her swimming independently this summer because she's so ready to do it. They'd stay all day in the pool if we'd let them.

Tia Ria Gets Married!

2011-06-17T20:59:00.007-07:00

Joseph's sister Maria (a.k.a. Tia Ria to her nieces and nephews) married a boy from Finland named Teppo Jottenus in the Jordan River LDS Temple.

We think Teppo rocks the Jean Luc Picard look. He's probably smart enough that he could fly the Enterprise if he had to as well. He's currently studying particle physics at MIT. I think he brought the collective IQ of the family way up when he joined it.

Most of all, he is a really great guy and we are thrilled for him and Maria to have found each other. I think they like each other just a little bit. ;)

Teppo's parents are on the left. You won't meet two kinder and better people than these two. Teppo's father was announced in the last General Conference as a new area authority for the Church over Finland and surrounding countries. It was a pleasure to be able to get to know them and their other children at the wedding.

Maria is the 8th of the 10 kids to get married which is why we make such a big group with "just" the parents, kids, and spouses (and Grandpa Jensen). I am blessed to have been able to marry into such a great family and truly love these people.

I think Joseph had just been rubbing The Bowling Ball for luck.

The Jensen family with the exception of Erik who is currently serving a mission in Independence Missouri, ASL speaking.

Joseph and I love this picture of all the grandkids (except Jensen, Siesa, Elsie, James, Jacob, and Bennett). You have every range of emotion possible, from complete boredom to absolute terror...and then there's our girls. Granted, they were in a good mood still at this point in the reception, but their smiles were helped along a bit by a little something called a fruit snack bribe. It worked!

The whole fam damily.

Maria's siblings (she's right in the middle, birth order-wise)

The obligatory tough guy picture with the groom, his two brothers, and his 8 brothers-in-law.

Will liked the dancing part of the evening best.

Joseph's mom, Bob, transformed the church gym into such a beautiful place for the reception. She made these chandeliers herself, just came up with the whole idea on her own. If I could have an ounce of her creativity it would be lovely.

Teppo and Maria really wanted to incorporate a lot of Finnish traditions into the reception like a formal waltz by the married couple as well as a Finnish wedding cake. So his mother made these delicious desserts that my children had a hard time keeping their fingers out of before it was cut. Those raspberries were so tempting. It tasted as good as it looked.

Del Mar

2011-06-17T19:41:00.004-07:00

We were able to join my parents and my brother Peter's family at a time share in Del Mar that Abby's parents, the Hunters, have. It was a very fun couple of days.

One day, without planning it, Will ended up dressed just like his cousins Austin and Gabe. Cute boys.

Sophie and Austin had fun playing in this sand box by the pool for a while.

They are best buds whenever they get together. It's fun to watch them play and use their imaginations.

Then there was the pool, or I guess I should say poolS. There was a shallow one for the kids and then two others on top of that. The kids could have played out there with Grandpa Lamb all day, and almost did. They love his Shamu rides that harken back to when I was a kid riding on his back in the pool.

The villa that you see here behind this pool is the Hunter's place. It's a hard knock life. :) It had so many rooms and was perfect for hosting a few families at once. In addition to playing in the pool we also got to walk to get yummy gelato and the kids played on the golf cart for probably longer than they should've. The parents played games once the kiddos were asleep.

The last day there we visited the Mormon Battalion Museum in San Diego. They have recently updated it and it is incredible. We were very impressed with the presentations and videos and learned a lot. The kids loved the pictures that talked to them and getting to pan for gold and other fun things they had there.

Will went in the pool for maybe the second time ever. He liked it for only so long before it was just too cold for the little guy to take.

He loved hanging out with Gramma Lamb, though, and I loved having an extra pair of hands to hold him, too! Thanks, Hunters and Lambs, for a very fun weekend!

Easter 2011

2011-05-09T21:49:00.004-07:00

We got to do 2 different Easter egg hunts this year. The first was with our play group friends.

Avery had it all figured out this year and got quite a few eggs in her basket before the bigger kids came out to hunt.

Sophie loved finding the big eggs in our friend's yard.

A little checking out and comparing of baskets going on after.

I think it's safe to say they both got enough candy to rot their teeth right out of their mouths. Good thing I confiscate most of it after they eat a few eggs' worth.

We love our play group friends!

We also dyed eggs for FHE one night.

The girls had a blast, and I think Dad did too. :)

Our second egg hunt was with our OC cousins and our cousins' cousins.

Grandma Lamb helped William find his first egg. He is grabbing everything that's within a 10 foot radius of him these days so it wasn't surprising to see him hanging onto this basket with a steel grip.

I honestly wondered if Avery would find one egg and sit down to enjoy what was inside, but she was the Energizer bunny and kept searching until every last egg had been found.

She did pause long enough for a photo opp, though.

The girls were so excited when they realized that not only was there candy in the eggs, but some had cash!

And here is the whole fam in our Easter Sunday outfits.

Strawberry Spring

2011-05-09T21:11:00.002-07:00

We returned to our favorite strawberry fields this spring to gorge ourselves on the delicious fruit. We love Tanaka Farms!

There is nothing better than a strawberry kissed and warmed by the sun, straight out of the ground and into your mouth. We couldn't get enough of them.

We went once again with our cousins and some friends. William wishes he could have eaten some too, but he still had a good time on the wagon ride.

And since we hadn't had enough adventures for the day, we decided to make a stop at Disneyland on the way home too. The girls' favorite ride right now is of course Small World, even if the song does play about 1,389 times too many for me.

"Strange Things Are Afoot at the Circle-K"

2011-05-03T14:50:00.003-07:00

We have some exciting news to share. After many months of searching, we're buying a home!

And in case you're familiar with this area, the above quote ("Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K") should give you an idea of where the home is located. It's from the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." Any guesses? Here's another quote from the same movie that might help: "San Dimas High School football rules!"

Yes, we bought a home in San Dimas, CA, about 10 minutes from where we currently live in Glendora. If you'd have told Joseph 20 years ago that he'd ever own a home in San Dimas he would've never believed you, but I secretly think that it's one of the reasons he agreed to buy this particular house. As you can see, it's pretty cute and we're really excited. We'll be in it by June! We'll post pics of it once we've gotten all moved in. Yay!

Will's First Solids

2011-05-03T14:42:00.002-07:00

We decided to try out some solid food on William when he was about 4 1/2 months. We've started at that age with all our kids and the girls both took to it pretty well, so we hoped Will would too.

This is the same bouncer chair all 3 of our kids have been sitting in when they've first tried solids.

"I don't know about this, Mom!"

"Whadd'ya think about rice cereal, kiddo?" See his reaction below...

Not a fan. Every single bite came right back out. I have since tried oatmeal, mashed bananas, and mashed peaches as well, and he didn't like any of them. Only this last week has he started swallowing a little oatmeal, so at least we're making some progress. If it can get him to sleeping all night long like it did with his sisters, I will be one happy mama!

Princess Avery

2011-05-03T14:18:00.002-07:00

Avery went to her first princess birthday party with just her 2 and 3-yr. old friends. It was for her friend Mia.

She was so sweet in her fancy dress and all on her own she crossed her legs and clasped her hands like a true princess. Princess Kate ain't got nothin' on her!

She was in heaven when she got to color and play with stickers, two of her very most favorite things.

The girls had their tea and crumpets (or something like that) and it was so fun to watch them.

They each were given a cupcake with a candle to blow out after singing "Happy Birthday" which I thought was so smart so that they didn't blow out the birthday girl's candle for her.

Seeing Green

2011-05-03T13:29:00.002-07:00

We were seeing green on St. Patrick's Day this year. For dinner we had green jello, green milk, and pesto pasta. And yes, that's a pot sitting on my table, but it's green so I let it stay. Nobody got pinched this year but we still had a fun day!

I {Heart} These Three

2011-04-08T09:46:00.003-07:00

We've been up to a lot lately that I will post later, but for now here are some pictures of the kiddos since this is what I've really been up to lately.

This is such a happy little guy. He makes me smile so much and I can't get enough of him. His Uncle Geoff gave him this little cow outfit and when Sophie saw him in it she said, "Look, Mom, he's a cow boy!" I love when they start getting funny!

In our pj's, all ready for bed.

At 4 months old William is 17 lbs. and over 25 inches long. He is trying to roll over but hasn't quite gotten it yet. But he loves to kick his feet wherever we are, in the bath, on the couch, when I'm holding him--they're always pedaling.

William doesn't love tummy time, but none of my kids have. And you'll notice I finally finished his baby blanket. I hope he loves it as much as his sisters have loved theirs.

Usually William looks like Avery, but sometimes he resembles Sophie, too. I don't know if it's because it's a weird angle and he's right next to her here, but in this picture he looks a lot like Sophie to me. And that's spaghetti sauce on Avery's face.

We had a string of hot days last week so we finally broke out the swim suits to do more than just go in the hot tub. The pool was still cold but that didn't deter the girls. William wasn't a big fan, but he will be. And I have to mention that Avery is potty trained! I am so excited to only have one in diapers again (though Avery still wears one at night, and probably will for a while.) I love that she's in big girl underwear except for when we go to the park and the pool. Then it gets a lot more annoying, but I'll take the inconvenience any day. Way to go, Aves!

Superhero Princesses

2011-03-18T22:45:00.002-07:00

Sophie went to a fun super hero birthday party a couple weeks ago. She was so excited to see that the cape that everyone got had an "S" on it. I don't know if she realized the "S" was for Superhero, but I'm not going to tell her it didn't mean Sophie.

The girls were getting antsy one Sunday afternoon so Joseph created a spider's web on the stairs with some yarn. The girls had to try to get down the stairs without touching the web. This entertained them for quite a long time. I have such a creative husband!

Avery loves to color and spends many an hour in this spot coloring not just pages but also the counter and her whole body with her markers. She has stopped taking naps during the day but has a hard time making it through the whole day until her 7:30 bedtime without falling asleep for a few minutes around 4 or 5. It was so cute to watch her fall asleep on her books this day. I especially love the blue marker on her forehead.

Sophie got to take home Mr. Froggy from school one day to document what he got to spend the day doing with us. Here he is watching a little Word World or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with the girls.

We often meet up with our friends the Hyers at the park and one day I commented to Shannon when the dreaded ice cream truck pulled into the parking lot that my kids still didn't know what that truck was and I hoped we could keep them in the dark as long as possible. So I had to laugh when I got a text and this picture from her one Saturday when Joseph had taken Sophie and Avery to the park and seen the Hyers there that, "They know what the ice cream truck is now! Those dang Hyers are such a bad influence!" She bought them ice cream, and now they ask me for it whenever we see the truck. Dang Hyers indeed--hahahaha.

And to close, here's a video of the girls meeting Princess Tiana at Disneyland. I love her southern accent. And I love Sophie's backpack that she insisted on taking with her, packed full of activities to keep her busy in the car, as well as a burp rag for William. Such a mamacita.

A Little of Everyone

2011-03-04T15:17:00.004-07:00

A few weeks ago I left Joseph at home with Sophie and Avery and traveled with William for his first plane ride ever. Thank goodness he did pretty well.

We went to Utah to be with my family as my sister Julie went for her first time through the temple.

She is going to be married this summer to a great guy, Leo, and since she is the last of my siblings to be able to go through the temple, my parents wanted all their kids there for this special event.

I truly wish Joseph and my girls could have also come, as well as Peter's family. They were greatly missed. But it was an awesome experience to be there with all these wonderful people, and I'm just excited for the wedding this summer in which we all will be there together!

I missed both my girls, including this little Peanut and all her antics. She's a funny, independent, spit-fire of a 2-year old and I love her. (Those are hair bands on her fingers, fyi.)

Alright, who puts rubber bands on this boy's thighs and wrists every night?

Somebody's a little milk drunk I think.

Sophie rode in her school's bike-a-thon a couple weeks ago. She's riding Avery's bike here because she's got a better handle on it than her big one, and she rode very cautiously. Sophie likes preschool a lot and has had a fun year. We've recently decided to let her do one more year of it instead of sending her to Kindergarten at the age of 4 (though it was not an easy decision), and she's excited to go another year.

William is starting to look more like his daddy every day. We have two models of children we've decided. William and Avery fall into one model with Joseph, and Sophie's in my model.

See what I mean? A lot of it is the eyes. :)

Little Ballerinas

2011-02-21T20:49:00.002-07:00

It's time for ballerinas and tutus once again!

The girls are taking the class together this time and couldn't be happier about it.

Avery couldn't take a serious picture. She spent the entire photo shoot trying to pull Sophie down to the ground with her. Do you love the incongruity between the pretty clothes and the scraped up nose on Avery? She's a tomboy in a tutu.

This is Avery's first dance class but Sophie's second. Avery couldn't wait to be old enough to dance like Sophie did last year.

Here they all are on their first day. Is that Sophie picking her nose? Why yes, I think it is. (sigh) Oh well, they had a blast and Avery is spending less and less time sprawled out on the floor goofing off each time, so mommy's happy.

I'm In Love with a Boy

2011-02-12T23:23:00.005-07:00

While I am first and foremost in love with this boy and so glad this Valentine's Day to be his sweetheart...

...there is another boy who has captured my heart this year:

I LOVE THIS BOY!!!

What a smile! I finally had a chance to get his baby pictures taken and I love how they turned out. He was smiling up a storm.

And even when he played coy and shy, he was still adorable!

This little guy has the cutest smile and laugh! It melts my heart.

The first 6 weeks of my babies' lives for me are tough, but the first time they smile at me, it makes all the fatigue and sacrifice so worth it!

I love the connection that I get to have with my baby. William looks at me with the most adoring, I-love-you-more-than-anyone-in-the-world look that reminds me how I would absolutely do anything for him.

He has become such a big boy (he's a good eater, can ya tell?) and is really long. The doc says he'll be tall--ya think? ;)

William, you are my joy and love, and I thank God every day for sending you to us.

You good-naturedly put up with your sisters' attentions (read: mauling) and love it when they talk to you. You chat it up with them, too! I don't know if you'll talk as quickly or as much as they did from an early age, but I love to hear you coo and talk to me right now!

You epitomize this word "Love" to me and I'm so blessed to be your mother! I love you, William Badilliam!

At Our House Lately

2011-02-09T23:08:00.006-07:00

I haven't blogged in a really long time, I know. We haven't been especially busy or anything, it's just that life is crazier with 3 and with a baby, plain and simple. But we've been having fun.

Joseph is such a creative dad. Every Tuesday night he gets to figure out something fun to do with the girls while I go to Mutual with William. One week he decided to bring up some boxes for the girls to decorate and after they had turned them into cars, they sat in them and watched a movie. It was their first drive-in and they loved it.

The girls just love to love on their brother. Whether William likes it or not is yet to be determined, but I think he usually leans toward "Please get out of my face."

And this look here says: "Yellow ducks? Really? How am I supposed to be a man with yellow ducks?" Joseph says he's got until 6 months old and then no more ducks. Ever.

The kids' cousin Austin turned 4 recently so we got to celebrate with swimming, pizza, and donuts. They had a blast, as always.

It's really rough living in a place where this is what it looks like outside at the end of January. :)

Me and my bro, Petey-Poo. (Hey, at least I didn't call you your old nickname, the Pooer. :D)

The girls love getting dressed up fancy which is why all the Fancy Nancy books are their favorites.

And sitting in this princess chair was the cherry on top.

I just love Sophie in purple, and she knows it.

The best part about these dresses is how they twirl. Sophie judges a dress's worth by its twirling radius, so this got a 10.

Sophie likes to try her hand at photography every now and then. This is one of the better shots she snapped recently.

Joseph got to go to preschool with Sophie a couple weeks ago for Donuts with Dad day. You can see what color donut Sophie had by looking at her face! She loooooved having daddy there for the morning.

We recently acquired a new member to our family, the softest and definitely biggest member: a love sac. We're just keeping it for my brother for a little while, but the girls love having it here.

The whole family can easily curl up on it, even if you inevitably end up sinking into the center together. That's what makes it so fun.

So that's some of what we've been up to lately. How did it already become February?

I Want My Brain Back

2011-01-17T21:31:00.003-07:00

I was at the library Saturday and thought of a book I wanted to read but could not come up with the title. A call to Joseph for help sounded something like this:

"What's the name of that book that's written by that one guy? It's a classic, long, you've read it. They even made it into a movie starring what's his name. You know, the one I really like?"

I was dumbfounded when he couldn't figure out what I was describing. I finally came up with The Count of Monte Cristo on my own, but it took a looooong time.

Ever since having children I can't seem to remember anything. I used to have my whole week's schedule in my head and never missed a thing. Now if it's not on the calendar I'm toast. Simple words completely elude me all the time. At this rate I'm going to be 40 and not be able to remember my kid's names.

Joseph recently read a book that mentioned that during pregnancy certain parts of a woman's brain shrink considerably so that memory loss is a real thing. It said those areas aren't back to their normal size until your baby is 6 months old, either. So I've got a legitimate excuse for losing my mind, but I don't think mine ever comes back. With each child I lose more and more of it as it's slowly sucked through the umbilical cord and out with each nursing. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that if my children are smart one day you'll all know why. ;)

2 Months Old

2011-01-16T22:12:00.004-07:00

William is 2 months old today, so in honor of this milestone I will post some pictures of him from the past month.

I love this little bear suit. I've used it with all 3 kids and I think they all look so cute and snuggly in it.

My Mom gave William his first BYU shirt, a jersey. I think it brings out his muscles and makes him look like a linebacker already. (hahaha)

I had to bribe the girls to sit for these Big Sister/Little Brother pictures, but obviously my milk bribe didn't work on William. He still grimaced. He obviously knew he would get milk either way. Smarty pants.

This was the best shot I got. Oh well.

My friend gave me this shirt that says "I'm Happier Naked!" It's so fitting for William. He really does love to lounge around in nothing but his birthday suit. Sophie especially thinks the shirt is funny.

William's complexion was beautiful until the week before his blessing, just like I knew it would be. Happens every time. Darn baby zits destroying the sweet blessing pictures. He was still pretty cute, though. He's a sweet boy and we all sure love him.

Blessing Day

2011-01-12T17:44:00.004-07:00

We blessed William at church on December 26th, 2010.

I love that I caught a smile! He's doing this so much lately and it's my favorite!

His daddy gave him a very sweet blessing as he was surrounded by his grandfathers and uncles.

I love my boy!

I'm so blessed to have these men in my life.

William's sisters sure love him.

4 generations: Papa Lamb, Grandpa Lamb, Mom, and Will

3 generations: Grandpa Jensen, Dad, and Will. All these men have William in their names. Grandpa's first name is William and Dad's middle name is William.

With Grandma and Grandpa Jensen

With Grandma and Grandpa Lamb and Papa and Maybeth Lamb

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T11:08:00.001-07:00

From our family to yours, have a Happy New Year!

Jensen Family at Disneyland, December 2010

Christmas 2010

2010-12-30T11:17:00.013-07:00

We spent our Christmas in California with most of the Lambs (Jonny & Jamie were missing) and Joseph's parents.

Even though we were staying part of the time at a condo right across from a beach in San Juan Capistrano, we only went there one day because it was raining the entire week.

The one day it was nice enough to go over to it for a quick walk we even barely even put our feet in.

The storms did make some pretty cool foam on the sand for the kids to play in, though.

Sophie and Austin definitely took advantage of that!

The kids were just happy to finally be outside instead of cooped up indoors for several days.

But we found lots of fun things to keep them entertained, like making gingerbread houses.

Austin and Geoff teamed up to make a train.

Avery and I made a pretty typical house, while Sophie and Julie made a stable for the Baby Jesus with a tree outside it.

We also played a lot of pool, a lot of games, and visited a ton as well.

And everyone got a chance to hold the new baby.

Despite the rain we fit in a couple trips to the pool.

Sophie loved being tossed into the air by her uncles.

The kids were in hog heaven.

We did get one really nice day at the end of our stay in Orange County, so we made a visit to a nearby hotel that sported some pretty amazing ocean views.

Craig and Roberta came into town on the 23rd and we had an early Christmas with them.

Sophie loved being the elf who handed out all the presents.

She also loved all the Fancy Nancy books Gramma Bob gave her.

I got a pretty cool movie night package, complete with my favorite treat: Swedish Fish.

Joseph's Grandma Jensen gave all the great-grandkids hats she knitted. I love the girls' hats with the flowers on them.

Then we traveled to my Grandpa and Maybeth's house where we all stayed for Christmas Eve and Day.

We always start our Christmas Eve activities by reenacting the Christmas story. Sophie was our sweet Mary and Austin our fearless Joseph.

Sophie bravely rode this funny donkey to Bethlehem.

And then she carefully held a real Baby Jesus, our Baby William.

Wise men and shepherds came to visit the holy family.

At last it was Christmas morning. Santa brought Avery a bike so she can ride with Sophie.

I'm not sure she knew just what to make of it, but I'm sure she'll love it once she gets the hang of it.

Abby made all the grandkids plates with their letters and names on it. The girls refuse to eat off anything else now.

We got a great haul of stuff and had a wonderful day.

I'm not sure if I was naughty or nice this year, cuz this is what Santa brought me for Christmas (cuz "All I want for Christmas is you!") Joseph grew out his beard for the month of December. I liked it.

These two had a great Christmas. They got engaged! We're very happy for Julie and Leo and can't wait to celebrate their wedding in June.

We hope you all had a very merry holiday season too. Merry Christmas from (sometimes) sunny California!

Visits with Father Christmas

2010-12-18T20:22:00.003-07:00

The girls have had many chances to visit with Santa Claus this year. Fortunately, though, they haven't yet really caught on to the commercialism of Christmas and therefore don't regard him very highly. Christmas is still all about Jesus to them, thank heavens.

Avery asked Santa for some candy for Christmas and then was promptly rewarded with a candy cane by his elf. She's a believer.

Sophie said she was going to ask him for some whiteboard markers. I told her that we already had some of those, so she said she'd just ask him for some more for when ours run out. I love requests that are so easy to fill.

Joseph and I went to our ward Christmas party where each table got to decorate a gingerbread house. All the other tables were done with theirs before we even started, and they all looked so pretty that we felt like being rebellious and doing something different. So we made a bowling alley instead. And guess what? We won second prize, mostly because of Joseph's idea to turn the Christmas tree parts into a bowling lane complete with a ball and pins, and also because the judges were a few deacons who just thought this was funny. The girls loved it when we brought it home and spent the next week eating the candy off it slowly until the gingerbread was so hard that Joseph let them demolish the house with a hammer. How's that for Christmas spirit?!

The Primary also had a Christmas party for the kids where they once again got to sit on Santa's lap. This time Sophie asked Santa to bring Avery a bike (because I told her to say that since I'd gotten Avery a bike earlier that week. I'm sneaky like that.)

We took the Polar Express to the North Pole and saw Santa and his reindeer there. But the line to sit on his lap was too long, so we cheated and snuck through the exit to visit Mrs. Claus instead.

After all, anyone can sit on Santa's lap, but very few get to sit on his wife's.

The girls stuck their heads into these little snowmen.

I wish we could've gotten the entire family into these positions, but we never got the chance. It was a fun trip anyway, complete with a train ride to and from here. We've had a fun Christmas season so far and are excited now to celebrate with family in town! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Family Outings

2010-12-16T19:19:00.002-07:00

With Joseph on paternity leave we've been able to do a lot of fun things as a family the past couple weeks.

We went to Bonelli Park and fed the ducks (even the uber aggressive ones that nipped at our toes and legs.)

It was a gorgeous day and the leaves were beautiful. The kids climbed a few trees as we enjoyed a mini picnic and admired the scenery.

We went to Travel Town one night to see Santa and saw these beautiful trains as well.

And we went to Disneyland before the holiday crowds packed it. Our new favorite ride is "Toy Story Mania" at California Adventure. What a blast!

Giving Thanks

2010-12-10T22:44:00.006-07:00

Our Thanksgiving this year was a little crazy and a lotta fun.

Gobble Gobble! (Is that not the cutest little bum you've ever seen?!)

The holiday really started a week early with a Thanksgiving feast at Sophie's school.

Daddy, Avery, and Gramma Lamb got to attend it with Sophie. And I'm sure that Sophie and Avery truly considered it a feast to surpass all others because the menu included apple slices, carrots, mac & cheese, and goldfish crackers. Just like the Pilgrims. ;)

We held our annual Pie Night at our bishop's home this year since I'd just had a baby a week before. It was still a success. We had 14 pies total and over 40 people there to eat them and we had a great time.

Avery's shirt says it all.

The guys kicked off the morning of Thanksgiving with a turkey bowl that my brothers Peter and Scott also went and played in (and Leo, too). It was a beautiful day for a game. Do you see those mountains behind them? We live in such a picturesque place, and the weather can't be beat.

Joseph was happy to come home with a W, even though nobody was really keeping score, right? He made a great quarterback for his team.

I love this picture because you can see Leo catching the football with Scott running full board toward him. I have no idea how this play ended, but I can only imagine what happened about 2 seconds after this shot.

Meanwhile, the women folk were working hard at home to get the big dinner all prepared. I loved having it at my home this year because I got to pull out all the fancy stuff that I never use, like my china and goblets and serving dishes that just sit in the hutch looking pretty. Sophie was cute because she couldn't stop talking about how beautiful everything looked and literally dragged each person in the house into the dining room at least twice to admire the table before the dinner even began.

Did I mention that my entire family came for the holiday? It was partially because since William had been born the week before and my Mom came down to help that meant that there wouldn't be a big dinner going on at their house in Utah, so my Dad and brothers and sister just decided to come down here for it. But really it was a great excuse to get us all together again, and it was great fun for all. Thanks for coming and squeezing into our home, Everyone!

We have a Lamb tradition of going around the table towards the end of the meal and saying what we're most thankful for this year. I definitely said that I was thankful for these two.

And I'm definitely thankful for these two, too.

This is what William said he's thankful for.

After dinner we turned on some Christmas tunes and had an impromptu dance party. Even though I was tied down to the couch the whole time by my baby boy, it was fun to watch all the others get their groove on, especially the 4 kiddos. That was probably my favorite part of the whole weekend.

Since we were all together again we decided to take a family picture. We were lucky enough to get a lot with all the kids looking and William was so well-behaved through the whole thing.

We also got some of just our little family. Wow, we have so much to be thankful for and were truly counting our many blessings this Thanksgiving!

Counting Your Blessings thru Christmas cards

2010-12-03T23:46:00.004-07:00

Is this not such a cute card:

I think it's adorable. And it's just one of tons of adorable cards available thru Shutterfly this Christmas season. You can see all of them here. It must have been the one to jump out at me since I am in a very grateful mood right now. With the birth of a new baby I have so many things to be thankful for, and I am truly counting my blessings. I love that I found a card that appropriately reflects my current mood. That's really not hard to do with Shutterfly, though. They have so many cute, creative things available. I have used them many times before, from making awesome wall calendars for my mother-in-law and mom of their grandchildren for Christmas (and even one for our family that my kids love to look at because it's pictures of them!), to making scrapbooks that are so much less time-consuming than the way I used to scrapbook, and yet just as sweet. And now that I have one more in our home to be making baby books for, I'm grateful for anything that saves me time! I may just use Shutterfly to send out his baby announcements! And right now, Shutterfly is offering 50 free Christmas cards. If you'd like to get this amazing deal, follow this link and sign up! I did and I can't wait to send out my cards this year. Thanks, Shutterfly.

William

2010-12-01T16:39:00.007-07:00

Baby Will is already 2 weeks old, so here are some pictures of him from his first couple weeks of life.

We took some family pictures for our Christmas card and this was his little outfit.

William is such a snuggler. As long as he's next to a warm body he's happy.

I love baby yawns. And blue. Boy clothes are adorable.

Joseph got out his baby book to see how much Will might resemble his daddy as a baby. Turns out it's a lot.

With Gramma Lamb who could always settle his upset tummy.

I could love on this boy all day long!

A little wink for the camera.

Avery wants to hold her brother all the time but only wants him on her lap for a few seconds and then she's ready to (literally) push him off. She loves him though.

Getting to know his Grampa Lamb.

I love this little bum! Gobble gobble!

He sported a Baby's 1st Thanksgiving bib for the holiday.

Underneath it was a onesie that told what he's most thankful for right now. :)

My handsome boys!

William loves to sleep on his tummy, so sometimes I indulge him for naps.

Avery cheered on the Cougars for their big rivalry game against the Utes but they still lost, sadly. Will was initiated into the boys club his first two weekends of life with both football and basketball game viewing with the guys.

Here's to you, William!

Welcome, Baby William!

2010-11-18T16:35:00.003-07:00

Introducing...

William Julius Jensen. Born on November 16th, 2010 at 2:47 pm. Here's the proud father showing off his first son. He was a big boy weighing in at 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 21 1/2 inches long.

The labor and delivery went really well. I only had to push for a little over 10 minutes and he was out, luckily. Despite what he looks like in most of these pictures, he really is a pleasant baby who doesn't cry much. We just caught him at a bad time.

This is the last picture I got of him before he came out. Definitely the biggest I've been in my 3 pregnancies.

My Mom came the day before I was induced and has saved the day by taking over for me. Joseph gets paternity leave and it is wonderful to have him home as well and he's done so much to help. The girls sure are spoiled, and so am I.

Sophie is completely enamored by her little brother. She thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread and wants to hold him all. day. long. The first night they came to see me at the hospital she did hold him for about a half hour and thought it was pretty neat that he didn't cry the whole time.

Avery thinks William is cool, but she was much more interested in what they had brought me for dinner. We're going to have to keep a close eye on this girl for sure, or she will love him to pieces.

We are now a family of five and so happy about it! (Don't ask me why Sophie's covering her mouth in this picture. I don't know the answer.) We love having William in our family and hope he'll love being in it. What a lucky girl I am! Welcome to the world, Baby Boy! We love you!

Preggo

2010-11-09T10:01:00.004-07:00

Because people actually want to see my full-term belly (okay, by people I mostly mean my Dad) I will oblige and post these few pictures. No worries if you just want to skip this post. I would too.

The doctor thinks this kid is going to be big, as in over 9 lbs. if I go all the way to 40 weeks. I don't know about that, but we shall soon see!

Sophie took this picture of me. Other than the odd angle, she actually did pretty well!

This is after my baby shower last weekend with some of the spoils. And boy was I ever spoiled! I don't deserve it. But can I just say that I love boy clothes? They are all so cute! The line that Sophie is helping me hold was a cute idea my friend Pamm made. It's a clothes line with all the little boy stuff being held up by clothes pins. I just might put it up in his room for real as a decoration it's so cute.

I think we are ready for this guy to come out and meet us! We can't wait to meet him, especially his sisters. We'll keep you posted when he comes!

Our Mischievous, Sweet, Funny Avery

2010-11-07T23:00:00.003-07:00

I'm finally getting caught up on my posts and felt like doing one just for Avery.

Avery is so many adjectives all balled up into one as these pictures will show, and we love her so much.

We love her smile, and how her eyes disappear like her daddy's when she does. People still comment all the time how much she resembles her daddy.

We love how friendly she is. She's a charmer and everyone loves to get to know her.

We love what a comic relief she is. She loves to make people laugh and will go to great lengths to keep you laughing if she can. And if you can get her to laugh (which isn't hard) you're in for a real treat. She has a deep, throaty laugh that I would defy anyone to try not smiling at once you've heard it.

We even love what a mischief maker she is. If you turn your back on her for 30 seconds you'll be guaranteed to find a great mess when you turn back around. She is a quick one and it's a full-time job keeping up with her!

We love how she loves to mimic us and Sophie. She loves when I aim my blow dryer at her when I'm drying my hair, so one day I just let her have at it herself and she had a blast.

We love how she's always happy. Not much gets this girl down.

We love how she loves music and dancing. She dictates to us exactly what kind of music we're allowed to play for her and loves to move her body to it. She's also a good little singer and will belt it out if she knows the words to a song.

We love how adventuresome she is. She's very athletic already and will try anything. She's also tough and usually pops right back up if she falls down.

We love how quickly she can go from a crazy monkey...

...to a pretty princess. She loves to dress up with her sister and be girly, but she doesn't want to be that all the time.

We love how she loves life. She loves people, she loves having fun, and she is just a beautiful, happy little girl. We love you, Avery Jane!

3 Princesses

2010-11-07T17:00:00.002-07:00

Sophie got to go to another very fun Princess birthday party for her friend Tatiana. She calls this dress-up dress of hers the Glinda the Good Witch dress, so not exactly a princess, but close enough.

Sophie's good friends from school, Tatiana and Maggie.

The girls were completely spoiled and I think all future parties for Sophie are forever ruined thanks to this one. They got loads of Princess stuff, gobs of candy from the pinata, and spent forever in the bounce house/slide that I had to literally drag them from at the end. And I was spoiled with delicious Salvadorian food that was catered all evening because that's where Tatiana's father is from. The party was a big latin family-style affair and was so much fun. (I love that in this picture Sophie's in front of Ariel. She's her current favorite princess, thanks to the hair.)

The family was sweet enough to also invite Avery who was in heaven there. She had been wearing her BYU cheerleader outfit all morning that day for BYU's game and wouldn't change out of it for the party, so she didn't really look like a princess either. But they had a blast and it was fun to watch them have such a good time. I love my princesses!

Gymnastics!

2010-11-05T20:55:00.004-07:00

The girls started taking gymnastics about 6 months ago but I didn't get around to taking any pictures of them until last week. And I chose to do it the day that they told the kids to come dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Thus, Sophie is in her costume in all these pictures. Avery refused to wear hers because she loves her leotard so much.

I think it's safe to say that Avery LOVES gymnastics. She's a natural monkey at home, so being given permission to hang and climb on stuff at the gym is like heaven.

Sophie in her costume on the obstacle course. They have a new theme every week, and this week's was of course scary stuff like spiders, so they had a bunch of those littered underneath where the kids had to climb across. It didn't bother my girls at all, and they even wanted to play with them (unlike most of the other kids who were totally freaked out by them).

Look at that smile. Could she be any happier?

We love this little gym made specifically for 2 to 5-year olds. And I love that the girls have classes at the same time, so while I'm over helping Avery in her class, I can still watch Sophie do her tricks at the same time because she's just a few feet away.

Sophie practicing her cartwheels.

See? Monkey through and through.

Sophie always waited so patiently for her turn to do stuff, and often won the Star Student award for her class because of it.

This net leads up to the zip line and down to the ball pit, unarguably the two favorite spots in the gym for these two. It's right where they head when they get free time.

Sophie's getting pretty good at balancing on the higher beam.

Avery not so much, because she refuses to go slow enough, but she'll learn.

I love watching the girls do gymnastics and hope they love it as much as I did growing up. We'll even sneak over to the big gym occasionally and watch the big girls do tricks on the bars, beam, and floor, and it brings back so many great memories to me. Of course I quit when I was about 12 so I never got as good as most of the girls there (especially since that gym turns out Olympic athletes all the time), but I could hold my own. Sophie can't wait to be old enough to learn all the advanced stuff, and whether she actually does or not doesn't matter much to me. I just love to see my girls enjoying something so much.

Halloweening 2010

2010-11-04T21:14:00.008-07:00

We kicked off Halloween with the usual activity of carving pumpkins. We thought since the weather was so much cooler than usual that they might actually last a week and a half until Halloween, but they still molded and melted by a week. We're definitely not in Utah anymore.

The girls loved scooping out the guts and designing their pumpkin faces. Avery really got into it for the first time this year, and Sophie was able to do a lot more to help this year, so they both had a great time.

We had a pumpkin for William but he wasn't ready to come out and carve his apparently (for which I'm grateful because I didn't want a Halloween baby!)

Our first Halloween party was for MOMS Club and Sophie insisted on bringing Mr. Bear with her. Mr. Bear is her preschool class's bear and it was her turn to have him for a couple days and document what they did together. So we used the same little pumpkin costume that she and Avery both wore for their first Halloweens and dressed him up for the party.

Sophie's preschool class had a Halloween party but they didn't allow costumes. Instead they had a pajama party and Sophie thought it was awesome that she got to go to school in her pajamas. She was pretty bummed the next preschool day when she actually had to put real clothes on again.

While Sophie was having her Halloween party I took Avery to our little downtown to trick or treat all the shops there with all the gobs of other kids from the city. Shhhh, don't tell Sophie we did it without her. Avery got so much candy, and looked adorable in her little cupcake outfit.

At the end all she wanted to do was sit and eat her candy (she's not dumb!) so instead of fighting her and only giving her a piece or two, I let her eat as much as she wanted for about 10 minutes. She seemed satisfied with that and really didn't eat too much, and then I took the rest home and dumped it into the bowl for trunk or treating. I'm all about recycling candy.

The ward trunk or treat was Saturday night, but we told the girls that day was Halloween because we weren't doing anything Halloween-y on Sunday, and they didn't know any different. This is so not a great picture of Sophie, and Joseph is showing off his scary look, but you can see the back of our mini van that we love!

The trunk or treat always starts out with a chili cook-off that is delicious, and then they have a costume parade. We told Sophie to keep Avery close by as they walked around the gym, and she took it literally. I don't think she took her arm off Avery the entire time. Over-protective big sister already.

Sophie was Little Red Riding Hood this year and had the most adorable hood/cape to go with this dress, but it somehow disappeared in the month and a half between when we got it and Halloween. It was maddening because it never left the house, so we can't imagine where it went. I literally looked in every nook and cranny in the entire house for it and never found it, so Sophie wore a vampire type cape instead. Luckily she loved it, even if I wasn't a fan.

My friend loaned me this pumpkin costume that she wore when she was pregnant, and it ended up winning an award for me at the trunk or treat. My stinker friends who were in charge of the awards gave me the "Most Natural Costume" award. It's true, that's all my own stuffing in there! Thanks for helping me win, Baby Will!

Oh, and Joseph was a tourist, which was convenient since I put him in charge of taking all the pictures this year anyway. We love Halloween at our house and had a fun couple weeks of celebrating it. Hope yours was fun, too!

Pumpkin Patch at Tanaka Farm

2010-11-03T15:26:00.005-07:00

We took another field trip recently to visit the pumpkin patch at Tanaka Farm. We went there to do strawberry picking in the spring and had so much fun that we were looking forward to going back.

We went with our great friends the Hyers and had so much fun with them.

Unfortunately this tour of the farm was run very differently than the strawberry tour was and involved a ton more walking which was hard for me, but we survived and had fun. The girls got to try to find their way out of this corn maze at one point.

We got to ride a wagon around and saw the whole working farm.

We visited a petting zoo filled with goats and sheep.

Sophie was a little more fearful of them, but she soon warmed up.

The girls loved that there were scarecrows all over the farm, even on this tractor! We also got to be there with our cousins Austin and Gabe and so the girls were really in heaven.

Here are the two pumpkins we picked and subsequently made into jack o' lanterns. The pumpkins weren't too big, but thankfully they were just the right size for these two to carry since I already had one inside my tummy. The girls even got to pick some vegetables out of the ground and bring those home. We had a fun trip and sure love fall!

Down on the Farm

2010-10-30T07:48:00.004-07:00

We took a trip with the Lambs to Riley Farm to visit the apple orchard and other fun things they have there.

We got dirty, smelled all the delicious animal aromas (yuck!), and watched the pregnant mama goats waddle around the petting zoo. Abby and I empathized all too easily with them.

The girls made some friends with the horses (and once again were delighted to watch them poop on the ground. What is the fascination?)

This brown one liked Avery a lot.

The girls dragged Joseph through all the raspberry bushes, hunting for the last vestiges of the yummy berries left.

I wish I'd gotten a shot of the mountains in the other direction which were green and absolutely beautiful. The view from up here was amazing. Instead you get brown mountains and a pregnant belly.

The last thing we did while there was make apple cider. It was so much fun and worth the long wait. First we had to load up a crate with apples.

Then we dumped them into the tub to get clean. I think more than just the apples got wet. :)

Then we started putting the apples into the top of the grinder.

Grinding them up was hard work for these little hands, but the kids did great managing to turn the wheel anyway.

Sophie became a grinding champ.

Once they were all ground up, the strong muscular men took over pressing the apples down and squeezing all the yummy juice out of them. We poured the juice into a gallon jug and got to take it home. It was so delicious and the girls couldn't get enough. We had a great time and will have to make this a yearly tradition.

Sea World with Gramma and Grampa Jensen

2010-10-30T07:34:00.003-07:00

A month ago or so (I'm still so behind) Joseph's parents came to visit us for the weekend. We had such a great time with them here and the girls loved having one on one time with Gramma and Grampa Jensen.

Bob had mentioned once that she has always wanted to go to Sea World ever since she can remember because her mom went once and used to tell them all about it. So we decided that we had to go to Sea World while they were here. It probably wasn't exactly what she had pictured, but I think she still liked it.

I know the girls sure had fun! These two loved watching the piranhas in this tank. We watched all the major shows: Seal and Otter, Shamu, Pets Rule, and the new Dolphin show, and also saw the penguins, sharks, flamingos, and starfish.

I wish I'd taken more pictures while they were here than this, but I guess we were just having too much fun to pause much for pictures. Thanks again for coming down! We love you!

Our Sophie Girl Turns 4

2010-10-25T20:40:00.004-07:00

I like to tease Sophie that she's growing up too fast and had better stop before she gets too big to fit on my lap and such. Her reply is always the same: "Mama, if you don't let me grow up to be a mama, then you won't ever get to hold my babies!" I can't refute that, so I just let her keep on growing.

So Sophie had her special birthday this year and turned four on the fourth of October. She was pretty excited about it, even if it means that now when she has to eat a certain number of bites before her dinner is considered finished, it's now 4 instead of 3. The sacrifices we make to grow up.

Sophie is loving her preschool class and is posing with one of her best friends in it, Tatiana. She got to choose a book to donate to her class with her picture and name inside. I was absolutely shocked when it was a princess book! (not)

She requested pink rice crispy treats for her treat to take to school and enjoyed all the attention from the other girls who wanted to sit by her while they ate.

Later that night we celebrated Sophie's birthday with our favorite Orange County-ites, the Lambs. We were so glad they made the time to come up for Sophie's big day. We went swimming and had pizza for dinner and then it was cake time.

Sophie is obsessed with Ariel right now and wanted an Ariel cake, but I was really not feeling up for making a big, elaborate cake right now, so I talked Sophie into some simple cupcakes. I was so grateful that she agreed and was just so excited about getting to have Ariel on hers that the rest didn't matter.

Avery carefully took mental notes as she watched her big sis blow out the candle.

Then it was time for presents, and Sophie was spoiled by her grandparents and family. I think she definitely got her Ariel fix!

Joseph and I only really got her one gift, a bike. She's never had one before and the poor thing is so deprived that she doesn't even know how to pedal a bike, so we thought it was about time. But it's a little too big for her still and she's not finding it very easy to pedal, so this is going to take some time to figure out I think. But she was very excited about it nonetheless.

We have decided to have family parties every other year for birthdays, so since she had a friend party last year this year was a family party. We just renewed our Disneyland passes so Joseph can take the girls there while he's home on paternity leave for the next couple of months, and we decided to take Joseph's day off on Columbus Day and go to Disneyland. Sophie is now big enough that she can ride a lot of the big rides. Her favorite for the day was by far Soarin' Over California (my favorite too) and I was so glad she didn't get scared at all. But she was also still content to do the littler rides like Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Safari, Monsters Inc., and all the little ones at Bug's Land.

We even met some new friends, these two bears (whose names I have no idea about). The girls weren't too keen on the idea of hugging them, but they were cool with high fives.

I think Sophie had a fun birthday and we sure had fun celebrating with her. We love our bright, funny, serious, silly, stubborn red head! Happy Birthday, Sophie Girl!