Monday, March 29, 2010
QUESTION: Why do you feed twins ice creams cones in the bath tub?
ANSWER: Because that is the quickest place to clean up the mess.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
A NEW PHOENIX SUNS DANCER!
OK not really but she did dance during the Phoenix Suns game vs NY Knicks halftime show!
She was the most nervous for this one because it would be the biggest crowd she has danced in front of. The girls waited in the players practice court during the first half of the game and got to meet the Gorilla, see a few Suns players walk by them but more Knicks players came by and they loved being down there where most people don't get to go.
They did a great job but my favorite part was watching them dance and looking at the girls faces and all their eyes were looking up...they were watching themselves on the jumbo tron :)
And my favorite face of the night...
All in all, it was a fantastic night! Getting to watch Emma dance there, enjoying the game, eating some Coldstone ice cream, sitting on row 16 and watching Miss Moo walk around all happy as can be as people walking by congratulated her on a great dance.
She was the most nervous for this one because it would be the biggest crowd she has danced in front of. The girls waited in the players practice court during the first half of the game and got to meet the Gorilla, see a few Suns players walk by them but more Knicks players came by and they loved being down there where most people don't get to go.
They did a great job but my favorite part was watching them dance and looking at the girls faces and all their eyes were looking up...they were watching themselves on the jumbo tron :)
And my favorite face of the night...
All in all, it was a fantastic night! Getting to watch Emma dance there, enjoying the game, eating some Coldstone ice cream, sitting on row 16 and watching Miss Moo walk around all happy as can be as people walking by congratulated her on a great dance.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
RITE OF PASSAGE!
Eli has now progressed from just "boy who pees in the potty" to a "big boy who pees on trees!" It may seem a little silly, but to me - I am super proud :) One day we were driving down the road and Eli said he had to go potty and there was no place around to stop and go potty so I thought, "hey, he's a boy, he can pee on a bush or something on the side of the road." Well, little Eli couldn't. He must have gotten stage fright. We tried and tried and finally had to go back to the car and put on one of the twins diaper's so he could go pee.
Then one day last week I go to the park with my boys to meet some friends there. Eli tells me he needs to go potty. I say, "Natalie, can I run him across the street to your house to go potty?" She says, "he's a boy, just do it over there." I proceed to tell her how that doesn't work for him and she doesn't accept that answer. He was a boy and he needed to learn, that was the beauty of having boys. So we tried again and we were quite successful! That tree trunk never knew what hit him. We were at the park an hour and a half and Eli peed on the trunk of the tree 4 times! (I think he liked doing it so much he kept going and only with the hugest smile on his face!)
Then one day last week I go to the park with my boys to meet some friends there. Eli tells me he needs to go potty. I say, "Natalie, can I run him across the street to your house to go potty?" She says, "he's a boy, just do it over there." I proceed to tell her how that doesn't work for him and she doesn't accept that answer. He was a boy and he needed to learn, that was the beauty of having boys. So we tried again and we were quite successful! That tree trunk never knew what hit him. We were at the park an hour and a half and Eli peed on the trunk of the tree 4 times! (I think he liked doing it so much he kept going and only with the hugest smile on his face!)
Monday, March 15, 2010
EMMA'S BAPTISM!
The following is an account of Emma's Baptism according to her mother's thoughts. In no way do these thoughts depict the feelings of any other Jensen such as her dad or Emma.
This baptism is something that I have been thinking about for probably the last year. Nothing that stressed me out just something that was in the back of my mind. 6 months ago is when I really started planning things out in my head. What kind of things I wanted to happen, how I could avoid sharing her baptism with other kids, etc. After her "It's great to be 8" meeting in January that's when the wheels in my head really started spinning.
It turned out the boys she would be sharing her day with had parents that I like so it wouldn't be so bad sharing but long story short, Emma got her own day anyways and we were so excited! We knew she would get to wear Sidney and Abby's baptism dress to be baptized in, we knew we wanted to do a video of pictures of her from birth to now set to music while we changed her clothes, we wanted her to be able to pick everyone that participated in her program that day so that it would be extra special for her and we knew we wanted to serve food after wards and even though the time we had was 1pm we figured it was to late for lunch and to early for dinner so we couldn't just serve a chocolate chip cookie, oh no - we needed a dessert bar! (Chocolate Flan, Turtles, Carmelita's, Puppy Chow, Addiction, Homemade Brownies, Mini Cupcakes, Marble Cake, Magic Bars, Lemon Squares, all pink M&M's (her colors for the baptism were pink, black and white) and Chocolate Chip Cookies. We set up tables and chairs outside with long white table cloths and pink toppers and then each table had a vase with a black ribbon around it and pink roses and white tulips in them.
It was a lot of prep work but we knew that going into it. Although Friday night at 9:30pm with a dust rag in Jared's hand and my last batch of cookies going in the oven Jared looked at me and said, "I don't want to do another baptism, this will be our last one!" (He did take the day off and spend 4 hours doing yard work, babysitting the boys while I finished the last minute cooking things and helped me finish cleaning the house.)
Emma woke up on Saturday and was so super excited about her whole. She has been more excited to get baptized then she was about her party which made me really happy - that's how it should be. When we were getting ready she said, "today is going to be really special because I get to wear my cousins dress and this table cloth is really old!" (Emma's great great grandma made the table cloth we used for her program table and it was made between the years of 1915 and 1920 - see post below for for more details).
When we walked out of the door to head to the church Jared said, "do we have everything?" and I said, "I don't care anymore, it is what it is, let's just focus on Emma and forget the rest!" (The only thing I could come up with that we didn't have was her baptism book which I ordered 3 weeks prior to the baptism and it was supposed to come so everyone could sign it with a special message to Emma but instead we used 3x5 cards and guess what...the book came the day of the baptism but of course after the baptism was over and everyone had gone home, oh well).
We got to the church and helped set up chairs, we thought we had enough rows but they ended up adding 2 more rows in the end and there was still standing room only - Emma draws quite the crowd. As far as I am concerned everything was perfect! She picked out great songs to sing, her Aunt Ashley and Aunt Cara Germaine (she was hurt it didn't say aunt in the program) gave some amazing talks to her, her dad was worried he would have to dunk her more than once but once was enough, Grandma Rodgers went back to help dry off Emma while I started to turn on the video (which caused a small problem in the baptism that I won't get into on here but Jared and I still would show it no matter what because we liked it and we thought it kept the spirit in there) I also made my goal of not getting angry with Emma while we were changing her clothes - the video was 7 minutes and change long and normally I would get stressed and get frustrated with her but I remained very calm, of course I had Sydney handing me hair stuff, Randi getting her dressed all while I did her hair and we made it back into the room with seconds to spare - yes!! The confirmation was great, the Bishop's remarks were wonderful and the special musical number couldn't have sounded any better - the pianist created her own arrangement which was beautiful and the singers sounded amazing.
We finally made it to our house for the dessert bar and it was crowded and crazy but I had a dear friend who headed to my house early to finish the last minute things so that when everyone arrived they could start eating and that was the biggest help. I also had another friend who knew I was worried about not having enough food make a cake and not tell me about it because when she came over the day before and saw my table set up with my notes of where everything goes she didn't want to stress me out so her husband knew if he got the look he was to run home and grab the cake. My mom was fantastic and made the brownies and lemon squares - she was the only one I would let help - I don't like to get help but I can take it from my mom :)
Thank you to everyone who came and supported us, thank you to everyone who called to see what they could do to help and just thank you for helping make this such a memorable day for Emma.
Yesterday Emma decided to go to church with only her scriptures and song book and not bring her pads of paper to color on or anything like that - she was going to work on being a big girl and paying attention in sacrament. She even held off getting a drink of water. I was quite proud of her for choosing all of that on her own.
2 funny side stories, Chad gave Emma a gift card to Deseret Book and Emma asked me, "what is this like a library or something?!"
And, all last week while I baked desserts, Eli would ask for some and I always had to tell him; "no, its for Emma's baptism." So today we went to Costco and they had pre-made Easter baskets and Eli asked for one and I told him; "no, sorry." and he says, "oh, it's for Emma's baptism" and walked away with his head held down.
Emma, we are so proud of you for making the decision to be baptized. You are a beautiful girl, inside and out. I hope you continue to make such good choices in your life and continue to be a great example to your brothers and those around you. You have such an amazing spirit and bring unexplainable happiness into our lives. We love you dearly and would be lost without you.
(Emma, I apologize for the lack of pictures on your baptism day. The baptism was scheduled during the twins nap time so in their defense it wasn't completely their fault but when we went to go start taking pictures the babies lost it and it threw me off my game so therefore, you had one photo taken and the rest we recreated for you on Monday, same outfits, same hair, dry hair, wet hair, etc...but still, my bad.)
This baptism is something that I have been thinking about for probably the last year. Nothing that stressed me out just something that was in the back of my mind. 6 months ago is when I really started planning things out in my head. What kind of things I wanted to happen, how I could avoid sharing her baptism with other kids, etc. After her "It's great to be 8" meeting in January that's when the wheels in my head really started spinning. It turned out the boys she would be sharing her day with had parents that I like so it wouldn't be so bad sharing but long story short, Emma got her own day anyways and we were so excited! We knew she would get to wear Sidney and Abby's baptism dress to be baptized in, we knew we wanted to do a video of pictures of her from birth to now set to music while we changed her clothes, we wanted her to be able to pick everyone that participated in her program that day so that it would be extra special for her and we knew we wanted to serve food after wards and even though the time we had was 1pm we figured it was to late for lunch and to early for dinner so we couldn't just serve a chocolate chip cookie, oh no - we needed a dessert bar! (Chocolate Flan, Turtles, Carmelita's, Puppy Chow, Addiction, Homemade Brownies, Mini Cupcakes, Marble Cake, Magic Bars, Lemon Squares, all pink M&M's (her colors for the baptism were pink, black and white) and Chocolate Chip Cookies. We set up tables and chairs outside with long white table cloths and pink toppers and then each table had a vase with a black ribbon around it and pink roses and white tulips in them.
It was a lot of prep work but we knew that going into it. Although Friday night at 9:30pm with a dust rag in Jared's hand and my last batch of cookies going in the oven Jared looked at me and said, "I don't want to do another baptism, this will be our last one!" (He did take the day off and spend 4 hours doing yard work, babysitting the boys while I finished the last minute cooking things and helped me finish cleaning the house.)Emma woke up on Saturday and was so super excited about her whole. She has been more excited to get baptized then she was about her party which made me really happy - that's how it should be. When we were getting ready she said, "today is going to be really special because I get to wear my cousins dress and this table cloth is really old!" (Emma's great great grandma made the table cloth we used for her program table and it was made between the years of 1915 and 1920 - see post below for for more details).
When we walked out of the door to head to the church Jared said, "do we have everything?" and I said, "I don't care anymore, it is what it is, let's just focus on Emma and forget the rest!" (The only thing I could come up with that we didn't have was her baptism book which I ordered 3 weeks prior to the baptism and it was supposed to come so everyone could sign it with a special message to Emma but instead we used 3x5 cards and guess what...the book came the day of the baptism but of course after the baptism was over and everyone had gone home, oh well).
We got to the church and helped set up chairs, we thought we had enough rows but they ended up adding 2 more rows in the end and there was still standing room only - Emma draws quite the crowd. As far as I am concerned everything was perfect! She picked out great songs to sing, her Aunt Ashley and Aunt Cara Germaine (she was hurt it didn't say aunt in the program) gave some amazing talks to her, her dad was worried he would have to dunk her more than once but once was enough, Grandma Rodgers went back to help dry off Emma while I started to turn on the video (which caused a small problem in the baptism that I won't get into on here but Jared and I still would show it no matter what because we liked it and we thought it kept the spirit in there) I also made my goal of not getting angry with Emma while we were changing her clothes - the video was 7 minutes and change long and normally I would get stressed and get frustrated with her but I remained very calm, of course I had Sydney handing me hair stuff, Randi getting her dressed all while I did her hair and we made it back into the room with seconds to spare - yes!! The confirmation was great, the Bishop's remarks were wonderful and the special musical number couldn't have sounded any better - the pianist created her own arrangement which was beautiful and the singers sounded amazing.
We finally made it to our house for the dessert bar and it was crowded and crazy but I had a dear friend who headed to my house early to finish the last minute things so that when everyone arrived they could start eating and that was the biggest help. I also had another friend who knew I was worried about not having enough food make a cake and not tell me about it because when she came over the day before and saw my table set up with my notes of where everything goes she didn't want to stress me out so her husband knew if he got the look he was to run home and grab the cake. My mom was fantastic and made the brownies and lemon squares - she was the only one I would let help - I don't like to get help but I can take it from my mom :) Thank you to everyone who came and supported us, thank you to everyone who called to see what they could do to help and just thank you for helping make this such a memorable day for Emma.
Yesterday Emma decided to go to church with only her scriptures and song book and not bring her pads of paper to color on or anything like that - she was going to work on being a big girl and paying attention in sacrament. She even held off getting a drink of water. I was quite proud of her for choosing all of that on her own.
2 funny side stories, Chad gave Emma a gift card to Deseret Book and Emma asked me, "what is this like a library or something?!"
And, all last week while I baked desserts, Eli would ask for some and I always had to tell him; "no, its for Emma's baptism." So today we went to Costco and they had pre-made Easter baskets and Eli asked for one and I told him; "no, sorry." and he says, "oh, it's for Emma's baptism" and walked away with his head held down.
Emma, we are so proud of you for making the decision to be baptized. You are a beautiful girl, inside and out. I hope you continue to make such good choices in your life and continue to be a great example to your brothers and those around you. You have such an amazing spirit and bring unexplainable happiness into our lives. We love you dearly and would be lost without you.(Emma, I apologize for the lack of pictures on your baptism day. The baptism was scheduled during the twins nap time so in their defense it wasn't completely their fault but when we went to go start taking pictures the babies lost it and it threw me off my game so therefore, you had one photo taken and the rest we recreated for you on Monday, same outfits, same hair, dry hair, wet hair, etc...but still, my bad.)
TROUSSEAU
We used an old table cloth from my Great Grandma Sorensen for Emma's baptism. I called my grandma today to find out exactly how old it really was and she said, "well, its about 100 years old. She got married April 15, 1920 and she was born in November 1900. She probably started it when she was about 15 years old. Back in those days they didn't have tvs to entertain themselves and girls didn't go to the gym (she laughed because last week she asked Eli if he went to school and he said, "no, I go to gym") so they got together in women groups and they sewed and embroidered. It was for her trousseau."
"Grandma, I don't know what a trousseau is"
"Well, they would make fancy things and cloths to go on top of their cedar chests and then when they got married they would put their fancy lingerie in there. But before they got married they would have a party with their close friends and family and display all of their projects they had been working on so it was very important that they do nice work. If you could paint you might display a painting or something like that. So grandma made that for her trousseau!"
I wanted to type this story so I could remember it. I am sad that things like this are disapearing with tvs and gyms these days so at least now I will have a memory of this and can pass it on down - and yes to any of my relatives who might be reading this post - I am keeping the tablecloth - grandma said I could - so there!
Monday, March 8, 2010
OH GREAT, SHE'S 8!
Seriously?! 8?! She had a great day. She woke up to find some donuts that her dad had gotten up early to go and get for her, went to school and then we surprised her and took her out of school to go to lunch and then went home and opened up presents and then she went back to school again.
After school we rushed her off to dance and then as soon as she came home it was time for her party. She invited 10 little girlfriends to come with us to go to the drive-in movies to see "Alice In Wonderland". A couple of weeks ago, we took bags of popcorn with the invitation inside to her friends and finally the big day had come. We drove them out to the drive-ins, set up a table and had pizza, drinks and chips.
Then we sang Happy Birthday to her, had cupcakes and then she opened her presents.
After that we made some comfy areas for the girls to lay down in the back of the truck and in the armada and we passed out her goody bags filled with candy and sat back and watched the movie.
Emma LOVED her party which was evident by the countless thank you's we heard that night. Next up, her baptism on Saturday!
After school we rushed her off to dance and then as soon as she came home it was time for her party. She invited 10 little girlfriends to come with us to go to the drive-in movies to see "Alice In Wonderland". A couple of weeks ago, we took bags of popcorn with the invitation inside to her friends and finally the big day had come. We drove them out to the drive-ins, set up a table and had pizza, drinks and chips.
Then we sang Happy Birthday to her, had cupcakes and then she opened her presents.
After that we made some comfy areas for the girls to lay down in the back of the truck and in the armada and we passed out her goody bags filled with candy and sat back and watched the movie.
Emma LOVED her party which was evident by the countless thank you's we heard that night. Next up, her baptism on Saturday!
DANCE CONVENTION!
Saturday morning we had to get up an head out to the Renaissance Hotel out by the Cardinals Stadium for a dance convention. I have never been to one before and it was quite fun in a weird way. They break them up into age groups and put them into a room and rotate different dance instructors from around the country in there to teach them some new routines and just get a different view of dance.
The choreographers are well known people in the dancing community who have worked with people like Madonna, Brittney Spears, So You Think You Can Dance, etc. Emma was considered a "nubie" so she didn't get to work with the best ones but they were still really amazing. It was pretty fun to watch them come in and teach these girls a great routine in such a short amount of time. Emma loved it all except for ballet.
I really enjoyed watching her do tap dance, I have never seen her feet move that fast and she picked it up so quick, I was so proud of her. I hope her tap piece in the recital is this good.
Next was jazz. She loved that one too.
Then it was on to ballet. This teacher
was pretty strict like you would expect a ballet teacher to be. Head up, belly's in, butt in, extend your neck, make yourself be taller than you really are, smile, etc. He had them perfecting the basics the whole time that they never got to learn a routine. I have to admit it was a little boring for me as well so I busted out Emma's DSI and played for a few minutes. She asked me why I played it later and I said, "to take my mind off of how hungry I was" then I had to confess, "OK I lied, it was boring and I needed to stay awake." I realize the importance of ballet but I can see how its not her favorite. Her face and lack of enthusiasm is very evident in these pictures - cracks me up.
Finally it was time for Emma's favorite, hip hop! Her first girl teacher of the day. Another great routine and it was back to seeing Emma happy as can be dancing in that class.
The doll pose...
And 6 hours later we were back at home :)
The choreographers are well known people in the dancing community who have worked with people like Madonna, Brittney Spears, So You Think You Can Dance, etc. Emma was considered a "nubie" so she didn't get to work with the best ones but they were still really amazing. It was pretty fun to watch them come in and teach these girls a great routine in such a short amount of time. Emma loved it all except for ballet.
I really enjoyed watching her do tap dance, I have never seen her feet move that fast and she picked it up so quick, I was so proud of her. I hope her tap piece in the recital is this good.
Next was jazz. She loved that one too.
Then it was on to ballet. This teacher
was pretty strict like you would expect a ballet teacher to be. Head up, belly's in, butt in, extend your neck, make yourself be taller than you really are, smile, etc. He had them perfecting the basics the whole time that they never got to learn a routine. I have to admit it was a little boring for me as well so I busted out Emma's DSI and played for a few minutes. She asked me why I played it later and I said, "to take my mind off of how hungry I was" then I had to confess, "OK I lied, it was boring and I needed to stay awake." I realize the importance of ballet but I can see how its not her favorite. Her face and lack of enthusiasm is very evident in these pictures - cracks me up.
Finally it was time for Emma's favorite, hip hop! Her first girl teacher of the day. Another great routine and it was back to seeing Emma happy as can be dancing in that class.
The doll pose...
And 6 hours later we were back at home :)
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