My birthday

I know this is bragging, but I have to do it. I seriously had one of the best birthdays ever. The BEST birthday ever considering the fact that most of what made it great was how many things my kids thought of all by themselves.

First, I woke up to a message on my bathroom mirror from my sweet Scott, telling me Happy Birthday (he gets up at 5 am for work and is nice enough to let me sleep through that every day!). I forgot to get a picture of it, and have already cleaned it off (which I'm really sad about because I usually leave his messages up there for weeks...) but it was happy to wake up to read that.

Tyler saw the message not long after breakfast, and that inspired both Emalyn and him to write me messages of their own. Emalyn wrote this, and put it up on my bedroom door:

And Tyler wrote this, and taped it (very securely) to the front door of our house:

This sort of freaky expression that he's wearing is his latest choice of a "smile at the camera" pose. Really odd-looking, I know.

Next, they both got out all the birthday decorations out of the top shelf in the pantry closet and put them all up for me. Then they wanted to make me a birthday cake, which I helped with. I've always thought you shouldn't make your own birthday cake, but it's so so so fun when your kids actually think to do it for you. It was really fun to help them with that.

In the meantime, a sweet sister from my ward brought me a rose, and at NOON Scott called to tell me he was on the bus, on his way home from work. That was the best surprise of the whole day!!!!!!!!!!

He stayed home while Krysta was napping and they worked on refinishing our canoe, while I got to go get my hair cut. It was getting way too long and really annoying me, so I wanted to chop it off. Apparently I communicated the "chop it off" part a little too well, because it's a bit shorter than I thought I'd explained. I'm not super happy with this picture, so I'm going to get a better one, but here's the finished look:

When I got back, we had just enough time to light the candles and have some cake before we took the kids over to my wonderful neighbor who volunteered to watch them so Scott could take me out for my birthday.

Yes, they actually counted out 32 candles and put them all on the cake. They had almost all melted down into the cake by the time they were all lit and I blew them out. But they were really excited that we actually had 32 candles!

For our date, Scott took me to the Olive Garden (yummy, yummy food) then we went and bought me new sunglasses and a new watch.

And that was the best day I've had in a long time... I am grateful to have such wonderful family and friends.

Jensen Family Reunion!

Last Friday and Saturday (July 3 & 4) was the Jensen Family Reunion. It was up a Heber Valley Campground in Utah, which is an LDS-owned campground. It was organized by Nancy and it was so much fun!

Instead of tents and sleeping on rocks, we got to stay in cabins:

and sleep on air mattresses! Tyler and Emalyn even got to sleep on the top bunks of the bunk beds because there was a higher railing there than on the lower bunks. As you can see, they were pretty excited. Pictured above: Tyler and Emalyn using their strong heads to help Aunt Heidi get her air mattress into her cabin.

This is a picture of Scott with all of his Calder cousins that came to the reunion. It's amazing to see the posterity of two amazing people, Paul and Geri Calder. This was taken Friday night after dinner, and just before the skits. Last Christmas, Nancy gave us each copy of the history of James Hacking, and for this reunion we were given the assignment to prepare a skit based on one of his life experiences. Our family (Scott and I) chose to do the story where James (Tyler) was a little boy with his two sisters, Phoebe (Emalyn) and Eleanor (Krysta), running down a hill when they saw a diamond-backed rattlesnake (Scott) ready to strike. They were running so fast, that James decided to tell his sisters to jump with him over the snake, and by some miracle they weren't bitten. (I narrated the story.)

That same day before dinner, we all went out on the lake in paddleboats and canoes, but Scott and I forgot our camera, so we have no pictures of it. But we had a lot of fun with all five of us on one boat!

The next morning, we went to the challenge course. These courses have challenges that build teamwork, self-confidence, and teach gospel principles.

The first was the zipline:

These are all pictures of Tyler first climbing up the pole, then walking across the rope, then getting across to the other pole where a sister missionary was waiting for him. This was about 20 feet up in the air. He was so brave! After this part (we didn't get any pictures) he was supposed to ride the zipline down to the ground. That part was a little traumatic for him, he really didn't want to go, and started crying and holding on to this lady for all he was worth. She saw me down on the ground and said, "Are you his mother? What do you want me to do?" You have to understand, there was no other way down than to ride the zipline at this point, and we couldn't go with him because it would only hold one person at a time. But when she asked me what she should do, I knew inside that the only answer was to push him off of the platform, but I just couldn't say that outloud. I was just so scared for him, and I couldn't have him hear me say, just push him. So I turned to Scott, and he yelled up, "Just push him out!!" And that's why we all have Dad's who are brave enough to do what has to be done no matter what. So the sister tried, but Tyler's grip must've been pretty good, because she couldn't get him off the platform. She tried and tried, and all the time Tyler was just crying and crying for Scott and I to come up and get him. Finally, Uncle Chris, (our brother-in-law) crossed the rope to be with Tyler (I think this was technically against the rules, because it took a while for them to let Chris do this) and he helped her push Tyler off of the platform. I am so so so grateful he was up there with them!!! About halfway down, Tyler's screaming and crying turned to screams of excitement and joy and relief. He was grinning by the time he got to the ground. The first thing he said to me was, "I wanna do that again, mom!" What a boy!!!

Here are some pictures of Scott doing the zipline. These pictures start form the platform after crossing the rope, where the sister missionary helped him get hooked up to the zipline and then he rode down it, and used a ladder to get off at the end:

After the zipline, we more challenges, but I only got pictures of two more. This one was the spider's web. We had to get everyone through the spider's web, without touching it, and each of us had to use a different hole in the web. Here we are after we crossed it:

The next challenge was to get all of us on this teeter-totter log and make it balance. We had to all get on from the same side and not change the order once we got on. Here we all are on the balanced log!

That was such a fun time with everyone. I got to know a lot of Scott's cousins a lot better. And it's always good to spend time with family. We miss our families a lot, since we moved to Idaho, and we love any and all time we spend with them.

Tyler's kindergarten graduation and Kinder eggs

Tyler graduated from Kindergarten yesterday afternoon. I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. He has grown and learned so much this year, and I've enjoyed watching him change as his knowledge of things grows. He is becoming such great reader and mathematician. He has a lot more confidence in his ability to learn new things. We're so proud of you Tyler!!

Also, last Friday, my sweet sister, Cheryl, mailed to me some Kinder eggs that we'd bought together near her home in Connecticutt. That was quite a miracle on her part, since they'd gone from her house in CT, to Utah in a moving van, then back to Nebraska in the same moving van, then she mailed them to me. Very sweet of her to do all of that for me. Here's the kids opening theirs. They'd never seen Kinder eggs before, so they didn't know of the surprise inside.

Memorial Day Fun

We had a really fun day yesterday. Scott didn't have to go to work, so we got to be together all day! We started the day by finishing the planting of our garden. I wish we'd taken pictures along the way, because everyone helped, well, except Krysta and that was another story... I must say, I'm really glad at the moment that our garden plot is so small. I guess my memory of gardening with my family while I was young is somewhat lacking...I don't remember it being this much work. But it's fun too, and well worth it...if our plants survive Krysta...So anyway, here is the finished product.

For lunch we went to the lava flow a little south of IF just on the side of I-15. It's actually a rest stop, but it has a nice paved trail that's about 1/2 mile long with lots of things to see and picnic benches. So we ate lunches and then went on our "hike". Tyler and Emalyn were so excited to be "hiking in the mountains." We really had such a fun time.

I don't remember for sure why Emalyn has this look on her face, but they were really happy right before this picture, I promise.Here, Emalyn was super freaked about sitting in this crack in the lava. We tried to help her understand it was ok, but as you can see, she was not happy about this at all. Krysta was just upset about being held at all. She wanted freedom. Tyler was just the happy person he usually is, and I was hoping the photographer (Scott) would hurry and take the picture.Here, everyone is much happier about the picture, but Emalyn was having way more fun climbing the railing, than looking at the photographer (me).

They built this overlook in the middle of the trail. You can see Tyler and Emalyn waving from up there.

Preschool Graduation

Emalyn graduated from preschool this past week. She has learned so much this past year, and is so ready for kindergarten!! Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Anderson.

Tyler played a great soccer game last week. Here is a video of some of the game:

Also, here is Tyler posing with a huge lego tower he and Emalyn built together. Normally, I don't condone standing on the table, but this had to be an exception-didn't they do a great job?

Soccer, Gymnastics, and other fun stuff

Emalyn started gymnastics about a month ago, and Saturday was the "family show-off day" at her gym. It was so much fun for all of us to go and watch her have a blast! She did really well. First, they did a dance to the song "You've Got a Friend in Me". About the camera work, well, Scott had picked a perfect spot to videotape her and just as the song began, her teacher stepped right in front of him. He did pretty good at finding a new spot pretty quick, as you'll see.

After that, we got to see her do some tricks on the trampoline, the bars, the balance beam, and tumbling on the mat. At the end, they had her stand up and raise her arms when she got her award certificate. She was so proud, and we're very proud of her for the great job she did.

Tyler has been playing soccer for over a month and has had three games. He's done so well! He loves to kick that ball as hard as he can. In the second picture, it's kind of small, but Tyler is in the lead to chase the ball. He's a very fast runner.

And Krysta is walking now!!! She's been walking for about a month. I was going to post a video of her walking, but apparently I haven't taken any. But Tyler took this cute picture (that has nothing to do with walking, but I love it!). I think he's got a future in photography!

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.