FACS

Janika just started a new quarter at school and is required to take FACS (Family and Consumer Science). She was telling me a little about the class and said, "we are even going to have a lesson in washing dishes!" I said, "Well, you are already an expert in that!" She said, "I know! I feel like sending my teacher an e-mail saying, "I am the oldest of seven children. I cook. I clean. I take care of kids. I know all this!!"

And she does. But she is excited to learn some new recipes and the sewing lessons will definitely be useful. I do hope she comes away having learned something new; like how to put her backpack away when she gets home from school.

Love you Jani!

Weekly Update

Today Janika said, "Mom, you haven't updated your blog since Tuesday!" "Heaven forbid!" We had a busy week and since I pretty much use my blog for my journal now, I am going to give a quick update from the past week. Last we had a family from the branch over for lunch and their daughter baby-sat the kids while everyone else went to the Draper Temple Dedication at the Stake Center. I remember the dedication of the Nauvoo temple was so incredible -- it really seemed like we were actually there. This one was neat too. What a wonderful experience to witness such an event.

Monday I went to an all day interpreter workshop at the hospital on Ethical Decision Making taught by Paula Gajewski Mickelson. I really enjoyed it. I thought Paula did a great job with her presentation and it certainly left me with a lot to think about. I brought Jenna with me. Since she won't take a bottle then I pretty much have to take her with me wherever I go. We have just started her on a little baby food, so hopefully we can get her to be not quite so dependent on her mommy! Jenna was very good until the last hour and then she started getting fussy and so I spent the last part of the workshop in the hall.

Tuesday Jase had his Geography Challenge (I already posted about that). That afternoon Grandma Jensen and our nephew Cody arrived (Rick's brother Craig's son). Cody is getting ready to go back on his mission in a week or so after having to return home a few months ago for major hip surgery. He was down here checking out college and job options for when he returns. We were so glad to have them come. We don't get to see our family often enough and so we are always glad when we can get together. We really enjoyed visiting with them and our boys had a ball playing with Cody.

Wednesday Grandma Jensen and Cody took Josh with them to visit the Jacob Hamblin home. Then Grandma watched the kids while I went to get my hair done (50% off any service at Hair Master's with the Dixie Direct Card if you go on Wednesdays between 1:00 and 3:00!) Then we had our Easter Party (see next post) and Janelle's soccer game. Janika went to Young Women's. Jenna FINALLY rolled over for the first time! Geez, it's about time -- she is almost six months old! One funny thing though -- even though she hasn't been too keen about rolling over, when she is laying on the floor on her back she tries to sit up. She actually does these kind of sit-ups! It looks so funny!

Thursday I had Jenna's six month appointment (and with Grandma here I didn't have to drag all of the other kids with me and expose them to all of those doctor's office germs -- yeah!!) Cody was able to get a tour of Dixie College this afternoon and really liked it. I had an appointment another appointment and barely had time to run home and feed Jenna before leaving to my class. Jase had scouts after school and then Jared had his Pack Meeting.

Friday morning Grandma and Cody headed back home. Boy it sure does help having an extra pair of helping hands around! I wish we had someone living with us all of the time! How nice not to have to pack all of my kids in the van in order to drop Janelle off to kindergarten or Jaiden off to pre-school! We were grateful for all of the help with kids, meals, clean-up, and moral support for our kids' activities! Thanks Grandma and Cody -- we love you!

Friday morning Rick went to Jase's 5th grade Maturation Program (remember those??) Luckily it was during his prep period so that he could attend. Friday night Rick and I went to our Branch's "Strengthening Marriage" class and Mexican potluck. It was excellent! I hope we get more people out to the next one.

Saturday morning Rick had meetings and so I picked up Jared from his early morning scout activity and brought all of the kids with me to Janelle's soccer game. (To say they lost would be a gross understatement -- they were creamed!) We stayed there at the playground for awhile afterwards and I enjoyed sitting in the sunshine watching the kids' play. Josh FINALLY started going down the slide by himself! He has always been afraid of it for some reason.

Saturday afternoon Rick had more meetings to attend. Saturday night I went with Janika (and Jenna) to the Young Women's Broadcast. It was SO good. I loved all of the talks! I would write more about it but I need to get to bed on time for once!

Now it is Sunday again and we just got back from the Pioneer Trek Kick-Off Fireside. Janika usually baby-sits for us, but since she went to the meetings last night and tonight, Jase (and Jared) tended for us instead. So that is my week!

Early Easter Party

Since we will miss the family Easter Party in a couple of weeks, Grandma Jensen brought the party to us. She said, "I brought all of the kids' eggs," I said, "Oh is it Easter already?" It was a bit of a challenge to fit the party into our busy week this week but we managed! Wednesday as soon as the
boys got home from school the kids hurried and dyed their eggs before it was time to go to Janelle's first soccer game. They won (but with no help from Janelle I'm afraid.)

Then we hurried and had dinner and bathed the kids and then let the kids loose on an Easter Egg hunt throughout the yard. I wasn't able to get any decent pictures of the Easter Egg Hunt or the Bash since I was video-taping instead. But I did get this cute one of Cody lifting Josh up in the tree to get an egg. The kids were thrilled with their new stash of candy!

Then we had the Easter Egg Bash. This is how it works. Each of the kids choose one of the eggs that they have dyed and then Grandma Jensen calls out two names. They sit across from each other on the floor and they each roll the hard-boiled egg towards each other. When the two eggs hit each other, one is cracked and one isn't. The cracked egg is out and the other is still in the competition. We keep going until there is only one egg left that is not cracked and that one is the winner!

The winner gets their name on a big family trophy and gets to take the trophy home and keep it for an entire year until next Easter. The Jensen family has been doing this several years now and it has become a fun tradition! The winning egg from our party will go up North to compete with the rest of the eggs at the family party this Sunday. It is a lot of fun and the kids love it!

Geography Challenge

Jase participated in the Geography Challenge this morning. I left him a little bag of goodies and "good luck" card in his backpack. He opened it and said, "Cool! I am going to do this in the sixth grade for sure!" I thought parents couldn't come or I would have -- darn it! He ended up taking fourth place. For the Geography Challenge the kids needed to study the following:

Level 1: 150 General Geography questions
Level 2: Landforms and Geography terms
Level 3: States and Capitals and their locations (for fifth grade)
Level 4: U.S. mountain ranges, rivers, lakes and bodies of water (for fifth grade)
Level 5: Current Events for the past six months

I am proud of Jase. He really studied hard for this. He even let me quiz him while waiting in line at Disneyland. Last year Jase also participated in the Geography Challenge. He said he wanted to do it since it was his worst subject (or so he claimed). I thought it was neat that he would work to overcome what he perceived to be a weak area in his repertoire of knowledge. Now he will be the first to say that Geography is one of his best (and favorite) subjects! Last year he started out not knowing any of the questions and he really rose to the challenge! He ended up getting first place out of the fourth graders (and so he was able to go on to district) and third place overall.

This year he was WAY MORE prepared and knew a lot more but apparently the other kids (at least a portion of them) were better prepared as well. He is a little disappointed that he doesn't get to go on to compete in District this year, but we just have to remind ourselves that it is the education (not the competition) that is important!

Cute Babies!

I just had to get a couple pictures of Jenna and Morgan together. Morgan is Curtis and Stephanie Healey's baby (just a few months older than Jenna). Cute babies!

Laguna Beach

Sorry for so many pictures. I am pretty fanatical when I have a camera in my hands...and then of course I think I have to post everything. Anyway, we stayed at Laguna Beach for three days. Our kids had a blast at the beach! They played for hours in the sand. It didn't matter that the water was freezing and that it was overcast most of the time (we did get some delicious sunshine on Wednesday).

Our kids finally got to play with the Healey kids and we finally got a chance to visit a little with Curtis and Steph (not enough though!) We stayed at a hotel right on the beach called "Pacific Edge." It was a nice location but the accommodations left much to be desired. We specifically got a hotel with a kitchen but they obviously are not used to families as big as ours since there were only four of everything -- four plates, four forks, four cups...

I called the front desk and asked where the scrub brush was. They said that they don't provide that. I asked, "So how am I supposed to wash our FOUR dishes?" I guess the maid washes the dishes when they come once a day but seeing as we have to feed half the family and then wash the dishes just to feed the other half of the family, that doesn't help much.

We kept kept having to call the front desk every fifteen minutes, "ummmm, could we get some more plates?" "How about a broom?" "Do you have salt? (okay, no salt). Then we got complaints because our kids were running around on the outside deck screaming (hey, they were just having a little fun). So we corral them inside but nine people in one little two room echoey hotel room (with only one bathroom) was enough to drive me up the wall. So it was a good thing that the kids wanted to spend so much time out on the beach. They hotel did have a nice pool and hot tub which was fun.

Rick and I were able to leave the kids with Janika for a little bit to go hot-tubbing one night and for a short little walk the next (while the kids were entranced watching the Disney Channel). That was about the ONLY alone time we got the entire trip. I am ready for a vacation with just the two of us!!

Disneyland Day One

I did it!!

Janelle (6 1/2) was one of our more adventurous ones. Here she is right after the big hill on Splash Mountain. She was nervous though! I had my arms wrapped around her the best I could and her little heart was racing!

This morning Rick got up early with Jase and Jared they were at the park when it opened at 8:00. They were able to go on several rides with only five minute lines.

Janika stayed back to sleep in and help me with the little ones. We each pushed a stroller and walked to the park, arriving about 10:30. By that time it was getting pretty crowded. Josh was MUCH BETTER today. I brought his blankie and he was content to just sit in his stroller and tickle his nose with the blanket's ribbons. Hey, whatever keeps him quiet...

Jase couldn't wait to go on his new favorite ride (Space Mountain) for the fifth time and recruited me to go with him. The line was too long and so we got a fast pass for later that afternoon and he kept asking me every fifteen minutes if it was time to go on it yet. "No, Jase, we still have three more hours to go..." We finally went twice in a row with the fast passes (fun ride but it made me dizzy). The weather was beautiful today (high of 71 degrees -- perfect!)

I was disappointed that we were not able to see any of the Disney characters. Every time we got in a line to see one then suddenly it was "break time" or "lunch time" or some other reason that they had to go. We were always told to "come back later." I remember lots of Disney characters the last time we came (four years ago) and our kids absolutely loved meeting them. This time there were hardly any.

After spending all day in the park, we went back to the hotel for dinner and ended up staying there for swimming and hot-tubbing.

Princess Fantasy Faire

After almost a two hour wait, our girls FINALLY got to see their princesses. And since we were joined by Rick and the boys right before we went in we got some family pictures taken too. (Believe me the boys were NOT excited about that but I convinced them that it would save us standing in another long line for Winnie the Pooh).

But I was really disappointed when I uploaded my pictures and half of them were blurry -- including ALL of the family pictures! I was so sad! Definitely time for a new camera!

At the Fantasy Faire you never know which princess will be there since they are constantly trading off. We lucked out though and got BOTH the girls' favorites! We caught Ariel (Janelle's favorite) just minutes before she left and Cinderella (Jaiden's favorite) just as she arrived. Jaiden wrote Cinderella a note saying, "You are my best princess" and signed it. So cute!

Disneyland (St. Patrick's Day)

Josh had another good day as long as he had his security blanket -- sticking ribbons up his nose! He liked seeing the fake jungle animals. The guy told the same corny jokes I remember from years past.

Tonight we finally got to see the fireworks show that we have been hearing from our hotel room for the past few nights. It was awesome -- probably one of the best I have ever seen. It was coming from both sides of us. The kids didn't like the loud booms though. When I asked Josh if he was excited to see the fireworks he said, "No, the fireworks are too loud!" He finally fell asleep in the stroller. Rick brought the three youngest back to the hotel and I stayed with the older four until the park closed. That is one of the nice things about staying within walking distance of the park. Jase and I went on the Matterhorn (ouch -- remind me to bring a pillow to sit on next time I do that!) Then the kids rode the Buzz Lightyear over and over since there was no line. After the park closed the kids ran around in the big area between Disneyland and California Adventure.

It's A Small World

I guess it would help if I actually took off my sun-glasses...

I love "It's A Small World," and I think Jenna did too! Jared was doing his best to look bored but he was the one who kept asking if we could do it again.

















































































Josh loved it too once he actually got in. He didn't do too well at the "waiting in line" part. The last picture shows him throwing one of his many tantrums.

Happy Birthday Curtis!

We went on our vacation with our good friends, Curtis and Steph Healey's family. It's "party time" when we get our two families together!

Sunday was Curtis's birthday. We all had dinner together at the hotel's outside patio area and then went inside for ice-cream. Rick and Curtis told funny stories from their high school days and then Rick told the kids scary stories before bed.

Hotel Playground

On Sunday we went to church at the Fullerton Deaf Branch and then the kids enjoyed playing on the little hotel playground.