What's been going on with us for the last month...

This post has been waiting awhile, because I wanted pictures of my trip in it. However, I have NO pictures from this trip because Scott and I decided that it would be better to leave the camera with him, and I would just get pictures from the other people who were with me on my trip. Getting those pictures is more challenging than I'd thought it would be, because we took sooooooo many pictures. Really, it's not their fault, I want good quality copies, so we have to with until I can upload them on my computer. So I need to be patient. But just so you all know, it was a blast. If you want to see pictures of my trip to Montreal, you can go to my Facebook page, where Irina has graciously posted some pictures she took. If you want to see pics of my trip to Connecticutt and NY to see Cheryl & Blake and their kids, and my parents, then go to Cheryl's blog, http://www.bcroper.blogspot.com/.

Anyway, I'm hoping that Scott will pen his first post ever, and tell you what he and the kids did while I was gone. It sounds to me like they had fun-in fact, listening to them, it sounds like they had more fun than I did! Scott did a great job at being Mr. Mom (of course, he's often that around here, but he did 8 days all by himself!) and I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband! It was time that I needed and he gave it to me so willingly.

So, for this post, I'm going to start with pictures taken with Jaron and Heidi before I left, when they visited us. They suprised us the week before when they called to ask if they could come visit. Now, just in case any of you are also wondering if that would be ok, I'll tell you now what I told them, "YES! Really, you're coming?! Oh we're so excited!!! When?" Truly, we love to have visitors. In fact we even now have an open room (and we can make more room if you need it) since Tyler and Emalyn are now sharing a room. I took courage when visiting my sister Cheryl who's two kids share a room and came home and made the change. They're really doing pretty good with it so far.

Anyway, we had so much fun with Jaron, Heidi, and little Jaxen.

Here is little Jaxen, isn't he adorable!
Definitely a well-loved little guy!
We went to the Greenbelt along the Snake River to feed the ducks and walk around the temple grounds across the street.

Jaron, gripping Tyler and Emalyn's shirts to keep them from falling in the river (it was not an ideal place for kids to feed the ducks).

The kids found this little table on our walk around the temple. Apparently it was a little tough to keep Krysta there long enough to get a picture.

Loved this picture that Heidi took of Emalyn.

Tyler and Emalyn found this stump that had been carved into a chair along our walk to the temple.

Oh no, we're in jail!

Krysta decided this was the comfortable way to ride in the 40-degree weather.

As you can see, we had a lot of fun with them. Thanks again to them for watching the kids while I packed and got ready to go on my trip!!

Now for what we have been doing since I got back:

On Tuesday, Tyler had his first soccer practice of the season (and his first ever!), so here he is with his uniform and ball: (he was really excited and in a funny mood, as you can tell from the pictures.)

Krysta also got excited about the soccer ball, and the mysterious toothbrush she'd found somewhere that day.

How does your garden grow?

We just started our garden last night for FHE. This is our very FIRST FAMILY GARDEN. So very exciting. Since there is still snow on the ground outside (and more in the forecast for the next few weeks,) we started some of our plants inside, and the rest will wait for warmer weather. It took a lot of planning, so we are extremely proud of ourselves. We've got one raspberry bush and some asparagus, onions, tomatoes, and celery that we've got planted in little planters downstairs in our laundry room.

The asparagus,

celery, onions, and tomatoes (in the covered tray being shown by Tyler and Emalyn),

strawberries,

and our raspberry bush, that doesn't look anything like a bush yet.

In other news, Krysta is finally walking (when she wants to). She's had the ability to for some time, but she finally walked across a whole room last week. Mostly though, she still prefers crawling. I guess it's still faster. We're so proud of her. I tried to get a movie of her walking, but she hasn't been agreeable to that, so, no movie. We'll try to get one soon.

Happy Birthday Scott!!!

As I was looking for a picture for this post, and couldn't find one of just him, I realized that he is the picture-taker in our family. He's always the one behind the camera. And that is something I love about him-he remembers stuff, like taking pictures, and other little things that really matter that I so often forget. And just about being behind the camera, he's often in the background making sure that things go smoothly, giving support and encouragement to me and to the kids when we need it. He's not too fond of the spotlight sometimes, but he deserves it more than anyone I know. He's my best friend, the one who makes me believe that I can do what I need to do. The reason I believe that I can be a good mom, that I can try to stop stressing about anything and everything, and that I can even try to unclog the dishwasher on my own (since he showed me how). Because of his support, I can play the organ on Sundays while he watches three very squirmy, loud, irreverent children in church, I have time to do fun things, like sew, crochet, and paint, and I can go on a trip for 8 days to NY by myself while he watches those same children the whole time...
Another thing I love about him is how he loves to build and invent things. He built a bassinet/changing table for Krysta when she was born, he built the coolest rig ever to hang our newly-acquired canoe from the garage ceiling, and he built a balance board for Tyler to play on. He changes the oil in the car and truck, vacuums, mops, and sweeps when my back hurts, puts the kids to bed almost every night, goes to work everyday at 5:30am, rubs my back when it hurts (and when it doesn't), reads books with me, and helps the kids with their Saturday jobs.
He can play the guitar and sing (my favorite is Shenandoah), he can speak Spanish, he is so amazingly good with kids, loves to play games with the kids, can get Emalyn and Tyler to really talk to him, and he lets me win way too many arguments.
These aren't even close to all the reasons I love him, but that would be a really long list.
Happy Birthday Scott!!

Valentine's Day

We had the funnest Valentine's Day yesterday. Every year up until this one, I think of it as more of a romantic holiday rather than just a holiday of love. This year, Scott and I put more emphasis on the whole family, rather than just the two of us. It's fun to have the romantic holiday, but well, we didn't have any babysitters lined up, and so it seemed better to just include everyone.

It started with a Valentine's primary activity in the morning, then we went to Lowe's to do their Saturday bi-monthly project (Valentine mailboxes). Tyler and Emalyn had lots of fun pounding in all the nails with their hammers. After that, it was nap time and quiet time. Tyler and Emalyn were suprisingly cooperative with that, so Scott and I got to read together (we've been reading Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima), and that was fun to have time together in the middle of the day without our kids.

After that, we started on dinner, which I'd been planning for a week. It was so much fun to have the kids help. We made a cake and decorated it with chopped strawberries that the kids arranged to say "I love you". It was so cute. Then we had strawberry lemonade (with real strawberries!!) We had spinach raviolini and asparagus. Add that to the BEAUTIFUL pink roses that Scott brought home for me, and this is what you get:

I thought that we had a better picture of the cake, but it turns out we didn't take one. But arent' those roses beautiful? It was a nice surprise.

Anyway, it was a really fun day. As I was writing about it, I realized that we didn't really do anything that spectacular. In fact, when I woke up that morning, I was in a horrible mood. Scott and I'd gotten to bed late, and with different kids waking us up in the night and then Emalyn getting us up at 6:30am, we got around 4-5 hours of sleep that night. I was really sad to be awake that early. I'd made these fun plans for the day, and I really didn't want to do it all being so tired. But we did it all anyway, and I just remember going to bed that night and thinking about how much fun we'd had making that dinner together. I guess it was just the excitement of the kids over making everything that made it just really special. It was a day that I hope we remember.

Also, on a different note that has absolutely nothing to do with Valentine's Day, I finally got to see my mission president and his wife at the temple on Friday! A while back, I posted about how they were called to be the president and matron of the Idaho Falls temple, and they've been there since November. I've been trying to see them every time I've gone to the temple ever since they started, but they've never been there when I was there. Sometimes I just missed them by half an hour. But they were there on Friday evening! When I saw them, everything I'd been planning to say flew out of my mind, and I just stood there with the biggest grin on my face because I was just so overjoyed to see them. I love them so much, and it's been about 7 years since I saw them last. He was in between meetings, so I knew he didn't have much time, but he kept saying to not worry about it, they had time to talk to me. We caught up on stuff that's been happening in the mission and in our lives since. We only talked for probably about 15 minutes, but everytime I think about it, I just keep smiling. I had some rough times on my mission, and President Stoddard talked to me and was there for me when I was really struggling. They are so dear to me.

A day of sledding

Last Saturday, we finally made it- we went sledding! We've had a goal to go sledding as a family for, well, all winter, and Tyler and Emalyn were getting pretty impatient with us. We have these huge soccer fields that are surrounded on one side by a huge hill just about a block from our house. It was supposed to be really cold that day, but it turned out to be just perfect.



Tyler was the best. He went down over and over and over, all by himself, and brought his own sled back up every time. It was so slick there, that a couple of times, his sled went down without him (it happens in one of the later videos on this post)! He was a pretty good sport about it, just laughed and went down and got it and brought it back.



Krysta tried going down twice on a sled with Scott, but she preferred her own way of sledding:




Here are some more fun videos of us sledding:

Family Pictures Dec 2008

Krysta's giggles

Last night, Krysta was pretty tired, and got the giggles. We had a lot of fun with her, so I just had to share this adorable video with all of you. Enjoy!

Christmas and New Years

This is going to be a long post, since I haven't posted since before Christmas. Just a couple days before Christmas, I learned that my Grandfather, Denmark C Jensen, had passed away. He'd had cancer for a couple of months, but it was still a shock to learn that he was gone. He made it to 93 years old!! He is an amazing example of faith and love and endurance. My favorite memories are of bowling with him when I was younger, dinners with him and my grandma while I was in college, and of him kissing my cheek whenever he saw me and telling me he loved me and was proud of me. I love you Grandpa!

Back to Christmas...

Here are Tyler and Emalyn as Joseph and Mary while Scott read the Christmas story. Thanks to Grandma Nancy for giving Emalyn this rocking horse that can double as a donkey.

On Christmas Day, we had lots of fun opening our presents and then playing in the snow. But since I for some reason couldn't get these pictures to switch the order, it looks like we played in the snow before opening our presents!! Emalyn got swimming goggles in her stocking, and being so creative, she figured out that they worked well as ski goggles too!



We went to Utah the day after Christmas to see Scott's family. Since we'd missed their Christmas Eve party, they celebrated it with us while we were there. Grandpa Ron shared a Christmas story he'd written about a boy named Jens who wants to give Jesus a present, and learns that serving eachother is the best give to our Savior. I really loved the story. Then we heard bells at the front door...who could it be?...Tyler, Emalyn, and grandpa beat us to the door, and what to thier wondering eyes did appear but... REINDEER!!! Seriously! Just across the street! They now know that Santa and his reindeer are real! They came and got us, and sadly, we missed the reindeer, but instead saw a wooden shoe full of candy. It was a beautiful shoe that Ron and Nancy got from Holland (through Santa of course). Then, Nancy gave us some bookmarks and pictures of Jesus with children. Tyler and Emalyn picked out which pictures showed each of them with Jesus. They also gave Tyler a truck, a car that breaks open when it crashes and then goes back together, and pants. Emalyn got a cupcake baker (see the picture to the left of her with the first cupcake she made with it?). Krysta got an electronic book, blocks that fit together, and her very first baby doll. It was so fun to share that with them.

We also spent alot of time with my parents, who were in town for my Grandpa's funeral. But apparently we didn't get any pictures!! Tyler and Emalyn had a great snowball fight with grandpa Roger Tuesday night. It was wonderful to be able to go to Grandpa's funeral on Monday. What a great man to celebrate and remember.

We came back home after Grandpa's funeral, just in time to spend New Year's Eve at home. We made hats, ate treats (you can see Tyler's blue tongue from his blue lollipop), and rang in the new year at 6:45 pm!! Then it was bed time. Also, the next picture features Tyler with his "cooties". He received this as a gift from his eye therapist, Dr. Alona King.

Krysta turned one!

Krysta's birthday was November 27! I can't believe how fast this year went by- and that she's already one! We were so blessed to be able to spend her birthday in Payson, Utah with Scott's family, since it was Thanksgiving. It was so nice to have family there for her party.

As you can see, she got a lot of help from her siblings in opening her presents.

Her Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Ron gave her this ball bouncing toy. She loves it!

Some recent pictures of Krysta,

And some pictures of her siblings,

here's Tyler, and then Emalyn,

Here we are playing in the snow (it finally came!)

And here's Krysta in the shirt that her Grandma Linda gave her: