Christmas Eve with the Jensen's!

Christmas Eve has to be my favorite day of the year!  You are at the pinnicle of anticipation for Christmas, and get to party all day with family!  We spent Christmas Eve at Karl's parents home, eating, playing games, and opening presents with his family. I have to say however, that the funnest part for me was when Karl, me, Lee and Lisa snuck away to their house to retro back to our dancin' days with several rounds of Dance Revolution on their Wii!  It was awesome!

 We simplified this year, and thanks to Costco, had a wonderful pasta bar!

 

We all came prepared with a white elephant gift to exchange.  Everyone was a great sport, and we had some great "gut laughs!"

Taylor was thrilled with his BYU socks!  However they ended up with Connor...trading is the name of the game!!

Grandparents and grandkids!

Christmas Programs and Performances

Early in December, I sent an e-mail to the grandparents to let them know of performances our kids would be involved in, incase they wanted to attend, and was surprised at how busy just 5 little children can be!

 Alyssa performed in her HS Choir.

 Taylor and his class performed for a nearby rest home. 

 Two cute girls and a beautiful photo-op!

Ashlyn is involved with our school children's choir, and they performed at the Joseph Smith Memorial Bld.

Ashlyn had a violin recital at the Alpine Tabernacle.

Traditions

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find myself with the belief, that if I don't maintain certain Christmas traditions, then my children will grow up scarred and dysfunctional, and it will all be traced back to the "year we didn't make sugar cookies..." etc. OK, so I really don't believe this, however my kids seem to think that Christmas really won't be as good without the following...

 Gingerbread houses.  My sisters generously donated their leftover supplies to us! 

 Ash and Taylor!  You wouldn't believe this, (OK, so maybe you veterans would..) but these works of art took about 2 hours of our evening!  2 LONG HOURS...

 This is my baby...I love my Christmas village!  Taylor helped me put everything up, and we just let our imaginations go as we turned out all the lights and stared at our magical village!

 The tree is up, and decorated, now we just count, arrange, and re-arrange our presents every day!

Arranging and re-arranging...

                              Lights...I am dysfunctional without lights on the house! Hey wait, is that my 13yr. old on the highest pitch of our roof! I just have to close my eyes!!

OK, so this was HILARIOUS!  I was asked to provide a game for Taylor's Kindergarten party, so I decided to put a spin on "The Limbo", by dressing up each group as Santa, and making them limbo with fat tummies and red shirts!  It became the hit game of the party!

Birthday Season

Six of our seven birthdays are in the Fall, which makes for a busy birthday season. I guess technically Connor is summer with a mid-Aug. b-day, but then the non-stop party begins with Karl's birthday early in Sept. and doesn't end until Nov. 1st. Karl celebrated his birthday in Texas watching Parker achieve his black belt. He said that was the best present ever! I turned the big 4-0, and...well...let's just say I survived. Truthfully it was just bad timing, and celebrating a birthday wasn't our priority at the time, so it came and went. I figure I've had 39 fantastic birthdays, so what if one of them wasn't the bash of the century. Life is good.

The fun news is that Alyssa turned 16! I'm baffled as to why more pics weren't taken, because we really did have a great time. We took her out to dinner, had a fun family party, then treated her and 4 of her closest friends to spend an entire day at Lagoon. I also took her to a Jon Schmidt concert, and I even got a CD signed (this showed up as a surprise under the Christmas tree...she loved it!) Parker turned 13, and Taylor turned 6 yrs.

Alyssa just read her official invite to the Jon Schmidt concert!

Alyssa's friend brought her a brownie cake!  Now that's my kind of cake!

 Taylor's pinata!  Alyssa took him all by herself (new driver and all...) and they picked it out together!

The kids each searched their rooms for a present for Alyssa...Ashlyn gave her a stuffed animal..:)

Connor made and decorated Taylor's cake all by himself! 

Alyssa got an iLive to listen to and charge her iPod.

Our Lethal Weapon

My Parker boy has been in Karate since he was about 8yrs. old, and achieved his black belt last September! He has worked REALLY hard, and we couldn't be prouder! He and Karl traveled to Texas (Parker's first time traveling on an airplane!) where he tested in front of the Grand Master.

Right before the test...still has on his "oreo" belt.

Houston Space Center

After 4 hours of grueling testing, and unbelievable endurance drills, Parker is handed the well-deserved BLACK BELT!

The black belt canidates from American Fork, standing with the Grand Master.

Welcome home Parker!  You totally rock!

Kazu and Halloween

We invited another Japanese student to come and stay with us for a week in October, and boy did we have a fab time! He was the nicest kid, and so fun to be with. The week went by quickly, we all wished we had another week with him!

Bowling with Kazu was fun, he was a great sport!

We took Kazu to Temple Square, were blessed to run into a Japanese sister on her way home, and she was kind enough to talk to Kazu in his native tongue about the gospel.  A miracle for sure.

We had a fun dinner with the other host families at BYU, then the exchange students performed for us. 

Kazu's first Halloween!  I wanted to make him scarier, but he said that was good enough..:)  He liked the Dracula idea!  (not to mention all the American candy to take home to his family!)

Speaking of American candy...holy cow Parker!

I took the kids to Tible Fork lake and let them explore...we were hoping there was still some snow, but no luck, so we just walked around in the MUD!

Fall Highlights

I haven't figured out if it's just me, or if time really is going by in the blink of an eye...my mother said this would happen...hmmm...not likin' it!   We had a great fall, and have had a super winter.  The kids are healthy and happy...unless it's time for Saturday chores...and I have no major complaints...except when I need to turn into the dictator for Sat. chores..but I digress.  Really things have gone well the past few months, here are a few Fall highlights:

 Our darling Alyssa received her YW Medallion this past October.  Soooo proud! 

  For his birthday, Parker wanted to go camping.  This is a stupendous idea...in the summer, but a late Sept. birthday it was a little cold!  Karl granted his wish  however, and took him and 2 friends.  They had a blast!

Our perfect little Emma came to visit us, and we loved her as our own!  

Connor is going to be one amazing dad someday!

So get this...some friends of a friend...you know how it is...gave us free tickets to a BYU game, AND passes to the hospitality tent!  Do you know what this is?   An all you can eat buffet for VIP BYU fans, who I guess, give lots of money to the football booster program. Needless to say, we felt very special and privileged for a time.  :)

Fall clean-up at the Jensen farm...we took at least 3 of these loads to the dump!

1st day of school....such a GREAT DAY!