Emalyn turned four!

Emalyn had her birthday on Tues, the 29th. I can't believe she's already four years old. She's starting preschool this fall. Time just goes by too fast sometimes.
She had a birthday party with her friends, and as it was my first party to throw, I must say, I'm impressed with how well it went. She wanted to have a princess party, so we told all the girls to come as princesses.





I made her a princess tiara birthday cake.








Scott and I made this castle for the girls to color when they first arrived.




We all danced at the "ball" with ribbons,






we also made "princess play-dough" (pink play dough with glitter),





When I asked Emalyn what she wanted for her birthday, she told me she wanted a garbage can for her room. She said she needed a place to put all her garbage. She was very sincere about it. When she opened it, it was the most exciting present that she opened. Here it is:





I don't know why this movie turned out black and white, but here's the singing and blowing out the candles at the birthday party.


A few days ago, Tyler asked me to record him singing Families Can Be Together Forever. Doesn't he do a great job?

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

This last weekend was fun and crazy. We decided last Wednesday to go to Boise to see my Grandpa and Grandma Ketcheson. We left our house Saturday morning around 7:30 am, got to Boise at 12:30pm (turns out it's a longer drive than we'd thought). But then I got to pick up my Grandma and take her to see Grandpa. We thought that Megan, Weston, Ryan, Melanie, and their kids would be their soon. However, they were all river rafting that morning, and due to alot of unforseen events, they weren't able to make it until after 4pm that afternoon. So I got Grandma and Grandpa to myself for about 3 hours. We had a good talk together. Grandpa seems to be doing better everyday. He even swallowed his pills whole on Sunday (instead of mashed up)! He's been pretty sick, and has a hard time talking. He told me some great stories though, some of were from when my dad was little.
They keep him pretty busy at the care center, with therapy daily. Part of his therapy is to play Nintendo Wii, especially bowling and golf. He said he really likes it. Who would have ever guessed that playing Nintendo would be considered therapy one day...

We stayed in the same hotel as Ryan and Melanie, and everyone went swimming that evening (Megan and Weston came too). I didn't get wet (Krysta wanted to go to bed), but it sounded like everyone had a lot of fun.
That night was HORRIBLE. I had known it would be. Staying in the same room with 2 kids and a baby was going to be hard, I knew it. But what we didn't expect was that Emalyn would fall out of her bed about every half hour. Maybe we should have moved her to the floor, but by the time we thought of that it was the middle of the night and I think then she would have put up a big fuss, and woken everyone else up. Her bed at home is just a mattress on the floor, so I guess she's not used to having that far to fall. Poor girl, and poor Scott who caught her every time. The one we expected to have trouble, was Krysta, and she did, but it wasn't that bad. She woke up around three am for about an hour, then went back to sleep. Ryan and Melanie were all in one room with their kids that night too. I can only imagine how much harder it was with 5.

The next day, we visited Grandma and Grandpa again, with the kids, so we just stayed for about half an hour. Grandma looks so pretty. It was so good to see them again. I only wish we'd gotten more pictures taken. That seems to be the story of our life, we always wish we'd remembered the camera more often. It was so fun to be with my sister and my brother's families, and grandma and grandpa again.

It's a Small (Amazing) World After All...

I just found out the best news!!
We subscribe to the Church News, but lately, it's been ending up in a stack of "to-read"things, along with the newspaper and other stuff like that. Well yesterday, the kids and I went to the park and I decided to get the mail, since we would be walking past our mailbox. There was the weekly Church News in there, and once we were at the park, I actually could sit down and read it while the kids were playing.

Well, I opened it up, and lo and behold, there was a picture of my mission president and his wife in there, President Larry Stoddard, and his wife, Annette. As I read the article, tears came to my eyes. They have been called as the new temple president and matron of the Idaho Falls Temple!!

I actually had to read it a couple of times, because I didn't believe my eyes. They are so amazing. I went through some hard stuff on my mission, and they both helped me so much. They helped me to become a better missionary and a better person. I love them and I'm so excited to see them again. I feel so blessed to have our paths cross again. If you want to see their picture and article from the church news, go here: http://www.ldschurchnews.com/cn/view/1,1721,500006516,00.html0.html0.html

On another note, we went to the zoo on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. When I told my dad we went to the zoo, he said, "Oh, so you didn't even have to leave the house all day?" ha ha. Very funny dad. No, this time, we decided to go see different strange animals who make loud noises (instead of just watching our own kids).

Here is Emalyn posing in front of the Otters. This was her favorite.

Look how brave we are!!

I know, this picture isn't too exciting. Yeah, no kidding. The sign said, "penguin feeding, 3:30pm". So we waited. And all they did was give one fish to one penguin at a time, and write down which penguin ate the fish. Then they'd give another penguin a fish. So not really all that cool. Kind of a let-down. But the rest of the day was really really fun.

Last weekend was also the Father's and Son's campout. Tyler and Scott had a blast. Here are some photos:

Scott also learned how to take close up pictures with our camera, aren't these flowers pretty?

Emalyn decided the other night that her potatoes would taste better with Strawberry Jam on them. We just had to take a picture of it to document it. And she really ate them.

Krysta-isn't she getting so big?

Emalyn LOVES flowers. So I showed her how they wear them in Hawaii.

Our trip to Utah

We went down to Utah this past weekend. We were supposed to go the weekend before for Scott's family's "Jensen Reunion", but we were all sick and it was supposed to get cold at night. So instead of going then, we went down one week later and got to see Scott's family.
On our way down, we saw Grandpa and Grandpa Jensen (Amy's grandparents). Grandpa actually said my name when he saw me! That made me so happy. That was the only thing he said while we were there, besides yes and no. He seems to be doing much better than before, from what I heard. It was so good to talk to Grandma. She has such an amazing ability to be so positive while going through all of this.
We also got to see Megan and Weston's place. We all had a pizza dinner together. The kids were pretty excited to eat while sitting on the floor. After eating and taking a tour through their new place, we went on a walk and fed the ducks together. They were some of the strangest ducks I've ever seen! They weren't hungry! I've never seen one duck not eat when you throw bread at them, let along a whole flock! But Tyler and Emalyn still had so much fun walking after the ducks and playing with them. Walking after the ducks is kind of like chasing them except you are not running and the ducks didn't appear to be concerned at all. They just walked the other way. So it looked like a kid/duck parade. It was cute.
After that, we spent the rest of the weekend with Scott's family. Heidi is pregnant and having her first baby in September. Her baby shower was on Saturday. She found out at the shower that she's having a boy! We're so happy for her and Jaron.
At the family dinner on Saturday, Scott, Tyler and I played the Wii a lot. Nancy bought Mario Kart, (which brought back lots of memories of way back when we used to play it in my family. That was the only nintendo game that I ever really got into.) and it was even more fun that what I remembered because we got to hold steering wheels in our hands and pretend we were actually driving! I lost pretty much every race (sound familiar Dave?) and Scott and Tyler were pretty good.

Anyway. it's good to be home now. Krysta sleeps so much better here and it's nice to get back into our routine and day-to-day life. My sister, Cheryl, is participating in a triathlon this weekend. Whoohoo!! She rocks! Good luck cheryl!

hello, again!

Well, just in case anyone still visits this blog, hoping for a new post, here it is!
I just haven't felt like blogging in the last month and a half, not at all. It just felt like I was so behind, I'd never catch up. But I guess I've decided that even though I'll never catch up, I'll still try to keep you all up to date on the Jensens.

We just got through passing around pink eye (or conjunctivitis- one of the coolest words to say out loud). I got it yesterday, and that makes all five of us! So yeah, that's been fun.
Hmmm... what else is new?
Oh, we bought Tyler and Emalyn new bikes last week. Tyler already had one, and we couldn't figure out why he never wanted to ride it. I just blamed it on his cautious personality, and the fact that he doesn't have depth perception (since his eyes cross). Anyway, his friend was over and wanted to ride bikes, and (surprise surprise) Tyler said he didn't want to, he'd just watch. After a while, his friend wanted to try Tyler's bike. (His name's Austin, by the way.) Well, Austin had been doing pop-wheelies, and riding around all over the place, but when he got on Tyler's, he could hardly pedal it! Yup! The pedals were pretty stuck. Scott tried oiling it, but it just didn't help. So we went to the store, intending to buy a bike for Tyler. But Emalyn hopped on a bike while we were looking for one for Tyler and started riding it all over the store. The price was a steal on both of them, so we ended up buying a bike for each of them. And now, we spend the better part of each day outside riding bikes. Well, at least Emalyn does. Tyler is still pretty nervous about it. But would you want to ride a bike if you couldn't tell for sure how high up you were and couldn't tell if the sidewalk seams were level or not? But at least he gets on and rides it a little now.
Oh yeah, and we started swimming lessons yesterday. My life is absolutely crazy. The lessons are everyday for 30 min, for 2 weeks. So, it's a good crazy. Tyler and Emalyn love the water.

We're going to try to go to Utah this weekend. We're pretty excited to see everyone.

Sustaining a new prophet, kid pics, etc.

This is Tyler modeling the snowman outfit my mom gave us a couple of years ago.


Tyler and Emalyn are so good at getting Krysta to smile and laugh. She loves her brother and sister very much.

Tyler and Emalyn are so into books right now. They love to tell their own stories by looking at the pictures in the books. They are so creative with their stories.


This weekend, we had the opportunity to sustain the newest prophet in these Latter-days, President Thomas S. Monson. As the weekend was approaching, I remembered when we sustained President Gordon B. Hinckley as prophet, seer, and revelator. It was my Senior year of High School, and I didn't remember Pres. Hinckley that well up to that point. I wondered how I'd feel about him being our prophet. So I prayed that I'd know that he was called of God. It was such a neat experience that followed. As he spoke in that General conference, I felt such an outpouring of love from him. I felt the Savior's love so strongly, and I knew he was called of God. So, on Saturday, when President Monson spoke, I looked for a similar answer. I was again amazed at the love I could feel emanating from him. He is not the same President Monson that spoke at conference last October. The mantle of the prophet has fallen upon his shoulders, and it has changed him. Not a lot, just enough to make him the prophet. I know he is our prophet and called of God. I know if we follow his advice and counsel, then we will not go astray. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful man as God's representative on the earth.





The snow is finally melting! We actually went for a walk for family home evening tonight, with coats and gloves on of course. It was so fun to pretend like it really is spring and starting to get warm! Spring can't come soon enough in my opinion.

Krysta hospitalized

Well, it did get worse. Krysta's RSV, I mean. The morning after I wrote the last post, March 18, I noticed that Krysta was not breathing well. I rushed her to the Dr, praying the whole way that she would keep breathing, and he sent us straight to the hospital. Turns out that she had RSV and Pneumonia. She had to be on oxygen there at the hospital for 5 days, from Tuesday morning until Saturday afternoon. It was such a nightmare. I was so worried about her, she had to be on the maximum amount of oxygen she could have for the first day and a half. They hooked her up to a lot of monitors. After 5 tries they finally put her IV in her head, which looked worse than it seemed to bother her. She was pretty annoyed by the nasal oxygen tubing. In fact, by Friday, she was getting pretty good at pulling it out. Before we went in the hospital, she wasn't able to grab at things yet. All it took was that nasal oxygen tube, and now she's getting pretty good at grabbing pretty much everything.

It was so hard to be in that hospital for so long. My mother-in -law came the second day she was in the hospital to watch Tyler and Emalyn. That was such a blessing. They thoroughly enjoyed their time with her. My brother's son was in the hospital for 5 weeks a couple of months ago, and I now have so much more empathy for them. I don't know how they did it.

I've been working on the dresses I'm supposed to sew for my sister's wedding in April. I must say, I am so impressed with myself. They are looking good!! I'm so proud because this is the first "real" sewing I've done.

Well, Krysta is doing so much better now. She'll be on antibiotics through Friday, but after that we should be alright. Thanks for your help everyone.

RSV, St. Paddy's Day

It's been a long time since I've "blogged". Sorry. But there's good reasons. All my kids have been sick the past few weeks. Tyler finally got healthy, but I found out yesterday at the Dr, that Emalyn and Krysta both have RSV. The dreaded disease, right? Well, I'm finding that out. They've both got horrible coughs, they don't sleep well, runny noses, and are just so sad, sad, sad. Emalyn had it worse last week, but all she's got now is the cough that won't go away. Krysta's pretty sick though. She's already had it for about 5 days, and today she developed a fever too. However, from what I hear, this is pretty mild for RSV so far. She's still breathing ok. I'm hoping this is as bad as it gets.

I have to go, so , Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Krysta's blessing

We had a super-crazy-but-wonderful weekend. We blessed Krysta this past weekend in sacrament meeting. All of Scott's family came, except Chris and Jesika and Alexa (we missed you!!), Deron & Virginia and their kids came, and Aunt Laura. It was so wonderful to have so many people here in our house. I was surprised by how much our house shrunk with 30+ people added to it. It was somewhat overwhelming and chaotic at times, but I loved every minute everyone was here. What a wonderful family we have. I felt so bereft when everyone left, that I cried. I wish they were still here! And how we missed those who weren't here. But it's quite a distance to travel (especially for family members on my side) and the weather isn't great yet.
Krysta's blessing was beautiful (great job, Scott!) and she was so good for the blessing. She was completely awake, so I was worried she'd cry through the whole thing, but she never made a sound.

Watch Scott and Megan blow out their candles!

We had so much fun with Megan and Weston this last weekend. We celebrated birthdays, had cake and ice cream, discussed wedding details, heard a beautiful choir piano accompaniment at church, and played in the snow. We wish they could've stayed indefinitely!