Thanksgiving Week!!

We had a great Thanksgiving week! I had the week off from work at Utah Tech and Jaiden had the week off from SUU. We went shopping for wedding dress and she narrowed it down to two dresses that she really likes! We will wait and check out some other stores. She isn't officially engaged yet, but since we know it will happen soon we wanted to set up some appointments while she was home for the break! (We did come back two months later to Bell Tower Bridal to buy the one that was her favorite!!) 

Monday night I met Tiffany Harding at Tuacahn so that could preview the musical, Elf, since we will be interpreting it in December. Tuesday Jenna had a dentist appointment and Jaiden and I went to another bridal place called Mae's bridal. This was a little rental shop in someone's house. But there wasn't a very big selection and she didn't find anything she was interested in. We stopped by a few possible venue places on the way home. 

Janika and Brandon's family arrived on Tuesday night. It was nice that they could come for so many days! Jase and Ellen's family, on the other hand, headed up north -- so they swapped places!! Ellen's brother, Danny, was getting home from his mission the day before Thanksgiving and having his Homecoming the Sunday after and so they went up for all of that!

Janelle and Bryton also came down. They stayed at his the Gustins, but came over for our Thanksgiving lunch and other activities. Jason also came down on Tuesday or Wednesday. Wednesday night we had the BIG two and a half hour interview with Jason!! The rest of the family watched a movie. It went well! We have the questions and answered documented for posterity, ha ha!  

Wednesday included a lot of baking. The girls were a huge help and Jenna made a ton of stuff. Then we had our Thanksgiving meal thursday around 1:00. Everything was delicious! 

We spent the day and evening chatting, playing games, watching movies, and just enjoying each other's company! Janelle and Bryton headed to the Gustins for their Thanksgiving dinner that night. 

Friday we went to the Mall to participate in the Light the World Giving Machines! It was the first time I had been to one. Jared and Hallie spent Thankgiving with her family, but decided to come down on Friday and so they met us at the Mall. We did the Giving Machine and then did a little shopping before heading back home! 

Jase and Ellen also went to the Giving Machine up north too! 

Saturday morning Jaiden and Jason left at 3:00 a.m. in order to drive clear to Arizona for Jason's friend's wedding!  It was a long drive, but they had a great time! 

Thanksgiving Blessing

My former missionary companion, Juliette Landsem Holdaway, now lives in Korea with her husband, who works for the military. Juliette also served her mission in Korea for a short time before serving in the ASL program in Atlanta, Georgia. She knew our son, Josh, was serving in Korea and made arrangements to pick up Josh and his companion and bring them to a nice hotel on base for a traditional American Thanksgiving feast!! It looks amazing! 

Not only that, but she had asked Josh and his companion what treats they missed from America that they weren't able to find in Korea. They surprised them with a total haul of treats!! Josh was in heaven!! Josh loves Takis and Korea doesn't have them and so he was excited to receive Takis along with everything else!! Hearing about this experience made my mama heart so happy! Thank you Holdaways for treating our missionaries!!  

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Tuesday 26: Janika and Brandon came from Pleasant Grove, arriving around 1:00. I didn’t realize that they were coming so early and told them that no one would be home since Rick and I both had interpreting jobs. They said it was fine; they planned to put the boys to bed as soon as they got there. I got home around 3:00 and then played race tracks with Everett. He loved it! He is so dang cute! Janika had said that Everett had seen the Marco Polo of me and Evan putting marbles and cards down our long orange race tracks and told him mom that he wanted to play race tracks with Grandma too.

We have a really old set, that we have had for many years, and most of the connectors are lost. I pretty much had to tape everything together with duct tape when I did it with Evan, and so I decided to order a couple of new sets for the boys. So, me and Everett put them together and build a long track. He had fun and was being silly and kept laughing and laughing.

Janika had offered to make dinner so that I could keep playing with Everett. So, we had a nice spaghetti dinner later that night. Janelle and Bryton arrived later that night and so it was good to see them too.

Wednesday 27: Today we did a bunch of cooking for Thanksgiving. Jenna made the pretzel jello and four step pudding. We also made gluten free stuffing. I had a hair appointment this afternoon and Rick worked with Janelle on the Daddy-Daughter dance for the wedding. Jared and Hallie also arrived today. I stayed up until midnight finishing up the yams so that I wouldn't have to worry about it the next day!   

Thursday 28: We had a really nice Thanksgiving! I started a little earlier this year, so that the turkey would be finished by noon or so. Jared and Hallie went running in the morning. Janelle and Janika went outside to peel the potatoes in the sunshine. We ate around 1:00. Everything was delicious! We went around the table so that everyone could say something they were grateful for and we gave a toast to each one! 

We enjoyed our meal and then Jared and Hallie started washing all of the dishes. Then they went outside to play croquet. Josh was able to call and so we talked to him for a while. They didn't do anything for Thanksgiving, which was too bad. Jaiden tried to hop on the call too, but was on her way to Zone Conference and didn't have a good enough internet connection. We all played JackBox and some of us took naps. 

Rick worked with Janelle on her dance for the Daddy-Daughter dance and it looks so cute (a little cheesy, but also precious!) I was in the kitchen and Christmas music was wafting through the air. I looked out the window to see Janika spinning a smiling Callan around. Behind them Rick and Janelle were dancing. I suddenly felt overcome with gratitude and became emotional as I just soaked it all in! It was just like something from a movie, ha ha! We truly have been blessed! 

Janelle and Bryton left around 5:00 to go spend the rest of the evening with Bryton's family where they were having another Thanksgiving meal. They had fun over there also, playing games and being together. The rest of us ate pie and four step pudding and watched "Family Man," which is one of my favorite movies. I was working on writing out the chalkboard labels for the ice cream and hot chocolate toppings for the wedding while watching it, so I was only halfway paying attention, but I have seen it several times. Then everyone headed to bed so that we would be ready for the reception the next day!! Janelle was pretty late getting home, so I waited for her to come home before heading to bed too. 

These two brothers look so much alike! Here they are two years apart, wearing the same little shirt. So cute! 

The cute newlyweds in their adorable matching pajamas! 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! All of our children were able to come this year, except for Jaiden who is in Mongolia, but we were able to do a zoom call with her! Janelle came down with Jared. They arrived Tuesday night. Jared had a bunch of his friends over for SMASH that night. Then Wednesday Janika, Brandon, and Everett arrived in the afternoon and Jase, Ellen, Evan, and Eli arrived that night at 10:00 pm. 

On Wednesday Jenna made the gluten free pretzel-jello, four-step pudding dessert, and gluten free pumpkin bread with gluten free frosting. She was also going to make the yams that day, but Rick had pre-ordered and picked up the food and when we cut into the yams we noticed that they were white, not orange. This is what google said: 

• Orange sweet potatoes have more moisture, are orange-fleshed, and very sweet.
• White sweet potatoes are dryer, white-fleshed, mild in flavor, and slightly nutty.

I didn't want to mess up the recipe by trying something we hadn't tried before, and so Brandon picked up some yams at the store later than night since he was picking up some other things. (As a side note, when we have the grandchildren come we needed to remember to get WHOLE milk, since that is what they drink.  Another side-note: Check the ingredients on the gluten-free pretzels because the ones from Walmart had flax in and so Rick had to return them and get some from a grocery store instead.)

Janelle still had to work each evening (except for Thanksgiving day). But it is a blessing that she could do her classes through zoom and work from our house (since missionaries now do their first ten days of MTC over zoom from home, and so she was able to pick up a district who still doing home MTC. So she worked from 5:30 to 9:30 on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. She is also thrilled because she got a nice raise at the MTC! She was making $17.00 an hour and is now earning $21.00 an hour! 

Thursday most of us slept in and then I started cooking! Jenna made the yams. Normally Rick gets one big 25 pound turkey, but when he went shopping then didn't have those and so instead he got two smaller turkeys, 14-15 pounds each. So I cooked one in the oven and one in the electric roaster. I liked the one cooked in a turkey bag in the oven better, but Rick said he liked the one cooked in the roaster. Next year I want to get a wire meat thermometer so that I know when the one in the roaster is finished without lifting up the lid and letting out all of the heat. It cooked faster than I thought and so I left it in there on warm.

Another note is to start boiling the water for the potatoes earlier, because it always takes way longer than expected for such a big pot of water to start boiling! So next year I will plan to start that an hour before I expect the turkey to be done, instead of just a half hour. It still worked out fine because I pulled out the oven turkey when it was finished and covered it with foil and towels to keep it warm while I cooked the rolls and yams, so by that time the potatoes were finished. 

We made gluten free stuffing from a mix this time. It was good, but Jenna and I liked the homemade better. It is a lot of work to make though. I was expecting everything to be finished at 1:00, but it was closer to 2:00 when we finally finished everything and sat down to eat. Everything was a delicious though! I was very grateful for all of Jenna's help cooking! We had turkey, candied yams, stuffing, carrots, peas, corn, pretzel jello, and rolls. We had TONS of pies for dessert, and also the four-step pudding and the pumpkin loaf. I had gotten the free pumpkin pie from the realtor give-away that they do each year, but it didn't get eaten because everyone liked the other kinds of pies better. 

We started off the meal with everyone saying what they were grateful for and then we toasted with Martinellis. When it was time for Rick and I to speak we both became really emotional. We have been commenting lately on how incredibly grateful we are for our many blessings! Rick opened up a letter and started reading, "Brother and Sister Jensen, you are hereby called to serve..." I think he might have fooled some of the family members except for the fact that they could see the "Deseret First Credit Union" logo through the paper, and they could also tell by my face that he was totally lying. So he laughed and then went on to read the letter from the credit union. He was emotional again and his hands were totally shaking! 

He then read the letter basically stating that our house had been paid in full. Yep! Our house is officially paid off! We paid it off last month, but wanted to wait until we had the family together to make the announcement. We even did Dave Ramsey's, "I'm debt free" yell, ha ha!! The family was all very surprised and thrilled for us! After we ate the boys cleaned everything up. Jared and Josh had been out playing pickle ball in the morning and hadn't helped with any of the food preparation. 

Then we called Jaiden and had a great visit with her! Rick did the same announcement, again announcing our "mission call," except he kept going, announcing that we had been called to Mongolia. She totally fell for it and was freaking out and starting to cry. Then we felt bad and quickly pack-pedaled to say that we hadn't really been called on a mission, let alone Mongolia. Then he did the "real" announcement and she said, "I remember you saying that when you got the house paid off you would take us all on a Disney Cruise!" Rick said that he had no recollection of such a promise!! 

After the call with Jaiden we went to do our "jump into leaves goals!" Rick raked the leaves into a pile and brought out the bubble gun he had purchased at an auction and then each of the kids stated a goal for the year before jumping into the leaves. We filmed the event and took pictures and then went on a short walk around the Santa Clara town hall. Then we came back for dessert!! 

Tonight we rented "The Barbie Movie." I had been really excited to see it. Most of the kids had already seen it in the theaters, but Janika, Brandon, Janelle, and I hadn't seen it. Rick didn't want to watch it and just went in his room and watched one of his Masterpiece Theater shows, ha ha. The movie was cute,  but I was starting to get tired from the day's events and hadn't had my typical Thanksgiving-Day nap,  and so I started falling asleep during it. I hate it when I really want to watch a movie but can't stay awake! After the movie I ended up staying late and was just fine, but it is just the fact that I am sitting still, passively watching (or reading) something that I fall asleep! Josh said that the Stereotypical Barbie in the movie looked liked Jaiden, ha ha! Well, she did dress up as Barbie to go see the movie before her mission!  All in all it was a great day! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a really nice Thanksgiving -- it was very chill! There were just six of us -- Rick, Wendy, Jared, Jaiden, Josh, and Jenna. Janika, Brandon, and Everett were in Bear Lake with Brandon's family, and Jase and Ellen were with Ellen's family. Baby Eli was finally able to leave the NICU and come home on Tuesday, so that was a nice Thanksgiving blessing for them! 

Jenna was a HUGE help with the Thanksgiving dinner this year! Wednesday our whole family put up the Christmas decorations in the house along with the outside lights. Jaiden's boyfriend, Maddox, came over to help and he and I did the outside lights. Putting up the Christmas decorations is always such a big job and took most of the day. Jenna started on the Pre-Thanksgiving cooking for tomorrow. She made the pretzel-jello and some pumpkin spice bread. Later that night I took Josh Christmas shopping (Fashion Runway and Ross) and Jenna continued cooking, making the gluten free stuffing and candied yams all by herself without even being asked. She did an awesome job on everything too -- everything turned out perfectly!  

Thursday morning I prepped the turkey and started the turkey cooking (turkey bag) in the oven and the kids started peeling and cutting the potatoes. Jared came over early to help. The kids set the table and then played video games (Mario, Boomerang Fu, and Smash Bros). The turkey finished right on time, but I still had several things that needed cooking. So I took out the turkey and left it in the bag and covered it with foil and put a couple of towels over that to keep it warm. That worked well and I was able to finish cooking the yams, the gluten free stuffing, and rolls in the oven while we cooked the regular stove, gravy, and vegies on the stove. I had cooked the turkey neck and giblets and used those juices for the gravy, so we didn't have to carve the turkey too early. 

I didn't have Rick carve the turkey until everything else was pretty much finished. That worked out well because then the turkey didn't get cold (like it sometimes does) before everything was ready. The turkey was very moist and delicious and just fell off the bone! Jenna had done a great job with her cooking -- everything turned out just right! We had a very nice meal. Rick was feeling a bit off this morning and was starting to feel dizzy, and so he went to take a long nap while we all cleaned up. 

After everything was cleaned up, everyone took a nap and then I went for a walk in the sunshine. Then the kids played more video games and then we all watched a Hallmark movie. It was a lovely day! 

And putting up Christmas Decorations (yesterday) -- I didn't get pictures of the inside decorations yet...

We had a plain green wreath, which I decorated with leftover Tree Ornaments

And Jenna decorated her room! 

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we had everyone here, except for Jase and Ellen and Evan who had gone up North to be with Ellen's family. We had a lovely meal of turkey, candied yams, pretzel jello, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, four step pudding, and pies. I have everything covered in foil in the picture in order to keep it warm and half of the food was on the snack bar. So it doesn't look pretty in the picture, but it sure tasted yummy! We are grateful that Janelle could be with us for Thanksgiving (as she is currently in home MTC). She had the day off to spend with family! Jenna helped me do a lot of the cooking the day before Thanksgiving and so the Thanksgiving Day went pretty smoothly!  

Janika and Brandon also chose today to share their "baby news" on social media!! 

The Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving Josh had a soccer tournament in St. George with two games on Friday and two games on Saturday. Everyone attended at least one of the games. I think I went to all four of them. Josh's team won two games, tied one, and lost one. It was fun to watch and I was finally able to get some great video footage of him making some goals! (I will have to add the video footage if I can get them copied over to YouTube.) A few days after the tournament Josh's knee started hurting though and we think it due to one of his falls during the tournament. 

Recently Josh wanted to get a soccer ball bag for when he goes to practice shooting at the high school. He now has a whole collection of balls. He already had a couple balls and his friend gave him about five more and he seems to pick more up here and there!  

The Sunday after Thanksgiving I taught my RS lesson and it went well. Janika and Brandon headed back home right after sacrament meeting. That night we had a family devotional online with Janelle from the MTC called "Come and See" to help missionaries and their families know what to expect this coming week! 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving! Yesterday I spent most of the day cooking. I made gluten free pretzel jello and four step pudding (with some help from Jenna), gluten free stuffing, Candied Yams, and prepped the rolls. I also had a hair appointment and went for a walk in the sunshine with my hubby!

This morning I got up and put the turkey in the oven and the kids helped to prepare for the mashed potatoes by cutting and peeling the potatoes. Rick had a list of "Gratitude Chores" for the kids to do in order to get the house and yard cleaned up (which they weren't very happy about). We ate our Thanksgiving meal around 1:30 and everything tasted delicious! The turkey was moist and delicious and all of the sides were yummy too! We had all of the above mentioned items along with corn, carrots, and stuffing. Unfortunately Josh hasn't received his taste and smell back yet. Jared's is starting to come back and Jaiden's is partially back. Thanksgiving is not a good time to not have your taste and smell! 

Rick read Uchtdorf's quote about gratitude and had all of us share a miracle that we were thankful for and we toasted to each one. (He always uses one of the kids' "creations" from ceramics to represent the "Bottle of Bitterness). This particular one was made by Jaiden. Here is the quote:

“It might sound contrary to the wisdom of the world to suggest that one who is burdened with sorrow should give thanks to God. But those who set aside the bottle of bitterness and lift instead the goblet of gratitude can find a purifying drink of healing, peace, and understanding.”

For dessert later we had the four step pudding, a chocolate pie, and a huge apple pie (compliments of costumer appreciation from our Realtor's office) with vanilla ice cream. I look forward to leftovers tomorrow! After we ate we all took naps! We were planning on going to the park for ultimate frisbee, but it was a little chilly and windy outside so we opted to stay in. Jenna set up a massage parlor in the basement with a massage table and candles around the room and soft music playing. It was free for a one minute massage, but $1.00 for the whole massage. She is quite the entrepreneur! I bought one from her. It was really nice! 

Jared taught us a fun game called "The Name Game" and we played a few rounds of that and then watched the movie, "Miss Congeniality." The reason that came up is because Jared was doing the dishes and started rubbing his finger around the top of the glass making a ringing sound. I said, "Hey, isn't that in the movie Miss Congeniality when she does a whole musical number by rubbing her fingers around the tops of glasses?" Then Jaiden said, "I have never seen that movie!" So we got the DVD from the Phillips and watched it tonight for those in the family who hadn't seen it. It is such a funny movie! 

After the movie Jase, Jared, Josh, Ellen, and Ky all went to the church to play a few rounds of Spike Ball. That was pretty much our day -- pretty chill! We missed not being able to have other family members come, due to Covid, but we were grateful we could have such a nice day with our kids (except for Janika and Brandon who were with his family in Bear Lake.)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Janika and Brandon were planning on driving down from Logan Wednesday afternoon, right after work, and Jase and Ellen were planning on leaving St. George to drive to South Jordan after their work on Wednesday. But there was a big winter storm up North and everyone was advised to not travel that day.

Thankfully their bosses were accommodating with work schedules in order to let the travelers go a day early. So Janika and Brandon left Logan on Tuesday around 5:15 p.m and picked up Grandma Jensen in Ogden on their way here. I had brought Jenna and her friend to dance and then shopped at Walmart for Christmas lights in order to finish decorating the house, and then brought the girls home from dance and then stayed up late cleaning the house and changing sheets in the bedrooms for our guests and so I was still awake when they arrived at 11:45 p.m. Jase and Ellen left St. George around 8:00 p.m. to drive to Ellen's home in South Jordan for Thanksgiving. We are grateful that everyone made it to their destinations safely!!

Wednesday morning we started cooking some of our Thanksgiving dinner for the next day (pretzel jello and yams) and then went shopping with the kids. Grandma and I took some of the kids and Janika and Brandon took some of the kids. We let them pick out their Christmas clothes from Grandma Jensen. The kids picked out clothes from H&M and Old Navy. We had to hurry back since Jaiden is singing with a quartet at the Stake Baptism on Saturday and had a song practice. 

Wednesday night we had a yummy dinner of home-made lasagna and veggies and salad. The kids played Jack Box while I worked on doing a quick thaw of the turkey in a cooler with ice water, switching out the water every thirty minutes (which was a total pain). We usually buy the turkey several days in advance so that it has time to thaw in the refrigerator, but Rick didn't buy it until Monday night and so I figured I had better apply the quick thaw method. Next year I will make sure we have the turkey by the Saturday before Thanksgiving!

Thursday we cooked our Thanksgiving lunch!! Grandma and all of the girls were a huge help!! Grandma and Jenna helped to finish the candied yams and also made the four-step pudding, which turned out to be delicious! Janika made gluten free stuffing. Jenna helped make the gluten free gravy. Thankfully everything turned out well! We had turkey, candied yams, stuffing, pretzel jello, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, corn, four-step pudding, and pies! Yum!!

We ate our Thanksgiving meal around 1:30 and then cleaned up. I took a long nap while the kids played games. We usually go for a walk to the park on Thanksgiving, but this year it was cold and rainy and so we were stuck inside all day -- playing games and watching shows. The girls showed Grandma the video of their play, Mary Poppins. We also just signed up for Disney+ for an early Christmas present and so the kids have enjoyed watching Disney shows and movies. I worked on gathering pictures for our Christmas calendar and Rick left for a last minute interpreting job. 

Friday we all slept in (except for Rick who had an interpreting job again). Grandma and Jenna worked on making a blanket with the kit Jenna got for her birthday. Grandma and Jenna also played several games together. We just ate leftovers all day and did Christmas shopping on-line. We thought town would be crazy because of Black Friday, but Rick said it wasn't bad when he went earlier. Maybe the weather (still raining) and the ease of on-line shopping deterred the usual crowds!

Thanksgiving with the California Cousins!

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we had a delicious meal and just relaxed and went for a walk, took a nap, and watched a movie (You've Got Mail) that night.